


It's Not Love

by thelesbianladydi



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:42:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25714489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelesbianladydi/pseuds/thelesbianladydi
Summary: It's not love, whatever it is she's doing with Quinn. It's not love that has her knee bouncing nervously on the 7.07 train to New Haven. It's not love, even though she takes the same train every Saturday. It's not love. It can't be.
Relationships: Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez
Comments: 83
Kudos: 181





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this story back in 2013 before life intervened. Recently I've been gripped by a desire to rewrite and finish it. Let's see where these two go.

It’s not love, whatever it is that she’s doing with Quinn. It’s not love that has her knee bouncing nervously as soon as she takes her seat on the 7.07 train to New Haven. Seat C12, the same seat she takes every Saturday, tucked in against the window so she can watch the same scenery flash by as the miles between them fall away. 

It’s not love. It can’t be. 

It’s not love, but the breath is still punched from Santana’s chest as the pale spring sun flickers through the early morning mist. The gentle glow is all too reminiscent of the light dancing across another achingly beautiful landscape. She closes her eyes and swallows - once, twice - but the memory of her fingers stroking gently over Quinn’s cheek beneath the moonlight filtering into a small dorm through an even smaller window in New Haven still plays against her eyelids. 

Santana presses her head against the cool glass, but nothing stops the images of last weekend flashing through her mind. Of a sheet shifting, exposing skin she had hurried to cover in soft yet insistent kisses earlier that evening. Of Quinn, stretched out and vulnerable beneath her, unafraid to let the marks on her body glow in the moonlight.

(They do nothing to take away from her beauty in Santana’s eyes. She sees them not as imperfections but as proof of Quinn’s strength, though she has never been able to tell her that. To do so always seems too much, too… intimate. A noose of fear always tightens around the words before they can pass her lips because that isn’t what this is.)

(She can only hope that Quinn understands the stroke of her fingertips along each mark, the lingering press of her lips to each scar. That she can hear the words Santana can’t find it in her to say.)

Quinn had chosen that moment to open her eyes and Santana had found herself trapped, held captive by the hazel glow. Neither woman had said anything. A ball of nerves had tightened sickeningly in Santana’s stomach as Quinn’s brow furrowed briefly in confusion before smoothing out. The back of her neck had prickled uncomfortably and her leg had twitched as the urge to run, run, run from the moment consumed her. If Quinn had noticed the movement, she didn’t let on; she’d simply kept staring into Santana’s eyes, waiting out the passing minutes until her muscles relaxed, weight sinking back into the warmth of the bed. Into the warmth of Quinn,

The memory terrifies Santana.

A body dropping heavily into the seat next to her jolts Santana from her thoughts. She shifts closer to the window, away from the stench of stale sweat poorly masked by a liberal dose of cheap body spray. The intrusion to her personal space almost has her wishing the journey would pass more quickly, were it not for the fact that she feels thoroughly unprepared to see Quinn again. There’s nothing Santana hates more than being unprepared, than not knowing how to navigate and control a situation. 

Quinn Fabray has always been the one person able to launch her world into confusion. 

Santana doesn’t know how she fell into this arrangement with Quinn. She struggles to find the words to describe it honestly, even if only to herself. Kurt and Rachel know she spends her weekends visiting her best friend - _one of her best friends_ , Santana reminds herself, though they barely acknowledge Brittany in her presence any more and have seemingly assumed that Quinn has usurped her - but they have no idea about the recent developments in their relationship. 

She’s glad for their ignorance, in a way, sure she would snap under the inevitable deluge of questions. Still, Santana has matured enough since junior year to know when she needs help sorting through her mess of emotions. Though seeing as the only people with whom she could contemplate talking about anything feelings-related are Brittany and Quinn, she’s finding herself directionless. 

Even the briefest of conversations with Brittany exhausts her these days, throat tightening around an increasingly painful lump as she fights to hide from her voice all evidence of the tears forming over just how damn happy her ex-girlfriend sounds.

(Brittany seems to have stopped noticing the weakness in her voice when they talk. Or stopped caring. Santana doesn’t know which one she’s hoping for.)

Still, even if Santana could hold a conversation with Brittany without being overwhelmed by a wave of hurt, asking for her ex-girlfriend’s help in defining whatever she’s doing with Quinn is definitively _not_ something she’s willing to consider.

It leaves her at a loss though, struggling to define their new rules of engagement. She’s never been one for superfluous niceties but _fucking_ seems too crude, too dismissive, too impersonal to describe what she’s doing with Quinn. The word stings as the image of the woman into whose embrace she falls too easily paints itself across the train window. 

So, no, fucking isn’t right. But calling it anything more than fucking seems too personal, as if she’s giving a name to feelings that don’t exist. That can’t exist. Her heart judders along with the rhythm of the train because she can’t be the girl that falls for both of her best friends.

She just can’t be. 

It was never meant to last beyond the time spent in the confines of a Lima hotel room. There had been no desire in that moment - after one time had bled into a two, three, four time thing and Santana had woken up to see her dark hair tangled with Quinn’s blonde as they shared a pillow - to discover more of the soft skin brushing against her own. Strangely, for the first time in three years marred by slaps and tears, petty fights over positions whose importance dissolved after graduation and love triangles more about status than any relationship, Santana had felt like she’d found her best friend. All the hostility that had festered over the years had disappeared, discarded among the clothes littering the floor, sweated out beneath hotel sheets, carried away by soft snores that filled the empty space. 

The taxi to Columbus airport the next morning had been marked, not by strained silences and flushed cheeks when their eyes caught, but by insistent promises to actually stay in touch this time. For Santana to make use of the train pass doing little more than decorating Rachel’s room. For Quinn to make space in her life whenever Santana chose to visit. 

(Quinn is still nervous in cars. Her body was tense like a diver before the plunge as she climbed into the taxi, unable to see anything but crushed metal and shattered glass. Her fingers had scratched over the cheap pleather seats, searching desperately for purchase, throat dragging painful breaths as her muscles tightened at every sudden brake, every blaring horn. Santana said nothing as she slid her hand across the space between them, tangling her fingers with Quinn’s trembling ones as she kept her gaze fixed out of the window and simply nodded at the soft ‘thank you’ which had fallen from Quinn’s lips. This was what they did. They grounded each other.)

The young mother sat behind Santana tells her son that they’ve crossed into Connecticut and she smiles before she can catch herself. Warmth floods through her at the thought that she’s getting closer to her… closer to Quinn. 

It shouldn’t thrill her as much as it does. Quinn’s just a friend.

Just a friend she’s taken to having regular sex with.

(The man sprawled next to her chooses that moment to laugh at something on his phone. A small part of Santana can’t help but feel it’s the universe laughing at her stubborn refusal to even consider the possibility of there being something more between them.)

Rachel and Kurt don’t know that she fled to New Haven when they kicked her out. She’d instinctively dialled Quinn’s number as she realised, shivering beneath the cold flakes still falling over New York in late February, that she had nowhere to go. They’d not seen each other since the wedding, Quinn’s life overtaken by the mountain of essays she’d neglected in favour of travelling to Lima, but she’d all but ordered Santana to catch the next train to her. 

Santana smiles as the trees thin, giving way to some anonymous Connecticut town. It’s nothing like the impressive architecture waiting for her. She can remember the first time she saw Yale, the feelings of abandonment churning in her stomach giving way to excitement as soon as the train slid into the platform. Quinn had grabbed her in a hug the moment her foot had touched the icy platform before grabbing Santana’s bag and leading her to the campus bus. 

She can remember how her breath had stuck at her first glimpse of the university, struck by the innate sense of _Quinn_ that seemed to be woven into the very fabric of the place. Brickwork infused with wisdom and delighted curiosity in equal measure, buildings bursting with a yearning to know more about the world. 

She’d instantly understood why the blonde woman sat beside her, staring out at the same buildings with a small smile, looked more at home in New Haven than she ever had in Lima. 

On her third night in New Haven, Santana had grown uneasy with how willing she was to spend evenings curled up with Quinn in front of her laptop. She’d wriggled into one of her tighter dresses, determinedly ignoring the prickling between her shoulder blades, and dragged her friend to a frat party happening across campus. 

“I want to see how you uptight geeks party,” she’d told Quinn at the time. 

Somewhere between knocking the drink out of the hand of the sixth boy to try and grope her that night and dropping into an all-night deli on the way back to Quinn’s dorm room to pick up a carton of ice cream, Santana’s hand had slipped into Quinn’s. The gentle squeeze of fingers was a constant pressure until they’d made it back to Quinn’s room. Somehow she’d managed to snag one of the rare single rooms available to freshmen - perhaps the universe had finally decided to smile on Quinn Fabray.

Setting the ice cream on the desk, Santana had turned to say how the solitary room was a perfect excuse to stay as late as they wanted at parties, but the words had floated away on a gasp as she saw Quinn staring at her, illuminated only by the wintry moonlight falling through the window. Hazel held brown in silence. Neither had moved for fear of shattering the heavy atmosphere settling over them. Vulnerability had flickered over Quinn’s face as her fingers danced at the hem of her top before she’d gently bit her lip and pulled the material over her head tantalisingly slowly. 

Still Santana had stayed silent, transfixed by Quinn. By Quinn offering herself to Santana, silently, openly, without any pretension. She’d joined her in the moonlight, breathing shakily as she gently cupped Quinn’s face. She’d brushed her thumb gently over Quinn’s lips, any lingering hesitation destroyed by the barely-there kiss the other woman pressed to it. 

Gripped by want, Santana had pulled Quinn into her, crashing their lips together. 

The ice cream had melted by the time they’d remembered it the next morning.

Santana’s cheeks redden as a bump in the track jolts her back to the present before she descends once more into memory. She remembers rapidly discarded clothes and the lingering warmth of the sheets she’d woken up wrapped in. She remembers a note from Quinn beside her on the pillow, a hastily scribbled explanation that she’d run to class but would be back with coffee. She remembers Quinn reappearing not ten minutes after she’d woken up, soft smile playing about her lips as she took in Santana. 

She presses her forehead against the window again in a vain attempt to cool her spreading flush. The fluttering in her chest contradicts what she’s been telling herself all morning, that what she’s journeying to is nothing more than a casual arrangement between friends. Part of her feels awful for hoping there’s nothing substantial to whatever this thing is with Quinn, but she’s jaded. She’s no longer the optimistic (naive) senior ready to take on the world with her girlfriend. She’s seen how feelings, how relationships, can destroy a friendship. She knows what it’s like for years of support and laughter and love to wither away under awkward conversations and ill-timed glances.

Santana won’t - can’t - commit another friendship to the same death. 

Her weekend trips to New Haven have become an accepted part of her routine. Neither Rachel nor Kurt question why she’s suddenly spending so much time with Quinn, and she avoids any probing enquiries into her personal life by investing entirely too much time and energy into theirs. Admittedly it had backfired somewhat with the Brody fiasco. Still, as the announcement that they’re approaching New Haven crackles through the carriage and that same damn _warmth_ swells in her chest, Santana wonders whether she should still think of the fallout so negatively. 

She had woken up on her fifth morning in New Haven, ear pressed against the steady beat of Quinn’s heart, to a message from Rachel. An apology that seemed to have been painful to write followed by a sheepish request for her to come back to Bushwick. She’d wanted to agree instantly but the vindictive side to her (that had lessened but not truly disappeared since high school) directed her fingers to tap out a reply that said she’d be back in a few days. She wanted Rachel to understand how rejected she’d felt, how they’d made her feel like a temporary interloper into their New York life, but she also wanted it to make it sound like she _did_ have other options.

(Santana tells herself that’s the only reason she wanted to stay in New Haven for a few more days.)

(She still hasn’t forgotten the flash of disappointment over Quinn’s face when she showed her the text.)

Santana’s already waiting by the door as the train grinds to a stop. The platform is wet with the evidence of the rain Quinn had spent all night bitching about over texts, but she doesn’t need to worry about her balance. As soon as she steps onto the platform, Quinn pulls her into her customary ‘welcome back’ hug. Maybe she senses Santana’s reservations, or maybe she’s battling her own conflicted feelings, but either way Santana is always relieved that Quinn doesn’t greet her with a kiss. That she doesn’t try to hold her hand. Santana doesn’t know how she’d react but, knowing her track record with panic and feelings, it wouldn’t be good. 

Quinn pries the handle of Santana’s case from her hand, and she rolls her eyes at the familiar gesture. 

“Who knew Yale would make you so damn chivalrous, Q?” 

“Shut up,” Quinn says, laughing as she turns to lead the way to the bus stop. “You love it.”

Neither of them point out that Santana doesn’t challenge her on that. 


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's strange to be thinking about Glee so much after having rarely thought about it for the past 5 or 6 years. Naya's had me thinking recently about how much Santana Lopez in particular, and I guess this show, meant to me and how much of difference it made to me. With everything going on at the mo, there's something comforting about dipping back into it.

“I’m sorry.”

Santana’s apology is soft, more exhaled than spoken, and easily pierces the comfortable silence that had enveloped Quinn’s dorm room all morning. Her tone pulls Quinn’s eyes away from the dog-eared novel she’s been reading all morning, the latest book she’s devoured from the stack Santana helped her carry from the bargain bin of the campus bookstore several weekends ago. 

Santana feels goosebumps erupt beneath her fingertips once Quinn realises where her hand is resting, not quite touching the ghostly white stretch mark that curls around her left hip. 

She doesn’t lift her eyes to meet the curious stare she can feel burning the top of her head. She’s too busy tracking her eyes back and forth over the length of the mark as Quinn shifts self-consciously beneath the prickling intensity of her gaze. Santana may touch Quinn’s marks with a gentleness that borders on reverence during their nights together, may press her lips to them as if in prayer - for forgiveness, for guidance, for permission - when their bodies collapse into each other, but she rarely draws attention to them outside of sex. 

Sometimes she wonders if Quinn’s heart breaks over such an all-consuming period of her life leaving her with little more than scattered marks on pale skin, torturous memories of piercing first cries and the handful of photos that are sent twice a year.

“For what?” Quinn asks equally softly, book abandoned on the pillow next to her. 

The silence stretches between them before Santana eventually forces herself to lift her head and look at Quinn.

“I should have been there. When… when all of this went down, I should have been there,” she says stiffly. Guilt and regret bleed out of every syllable. Her absence from Quinn’s side when she needed her most has long been one of Santana’s greatest regrets, but she’s been plagued by the memories more than usual since confronting Rachel about the positive pregnancy test. As Rachel sobbed into the crook of her neck, she thought about how she’d never offered Quinn a shoulder to cry on. As nausea clawed at her throat while waiting for Rachel outside the doctor’s office, she’d thought about how much worse this must have been for Quinn, sixteen years old and surrounded only by out-of-date magazines and withered plants as her world crashed down around her. 

Guilt that has festered over the years has weighed heavily on Santana’s mind ever since her first weekend in New Haven, but only recently have there been opportunities for her to address it. It never felt right to extinguish the passion dripping from their bodies with a long overdue conversation about their past but mornings spent curled around each other, warmth passing between skin pressed tightly together, have only recently crept into their… arrangement. For weeks, Quinn had slipped from beneath the sheets and out of the door, helped on her way by a seemingly limitless number of excuses scribbled onto notes before Santana woke up. 

(It had long been one of the many truths of their friendship that Quinn would always, always wake up before Santana. Her unique ability to rouse Santana before morning inspections by the senior cheerleaders on their first camp together was one of the things that drew her to the girl with poorly-hidden fear in her eyes.)

Yale was hectic in the very best of ways. The whirlwind of learning gave Quinn the environment she’d always yearned for. But it also furnished her with reason after reason to scurry away, jacket wrapped tight against the biting cold that punished her for leaving a slumbering Santana in her bed. Hastily organised study groups, meetings with tutors, unnecessary visits to the library - Quinn used them all to escape.

The morning after that first frat party, as weak sunlight and the distant sound of students heading to class had filtered into the room, Quinn had nearly toppled from the small bed. Only Santana’s arm, hooked loosely around her waist, anchored her against the anxiety pressing heavily against her chest. 

Twice she had fallen into bed with her best friend. Twice she had initiated it, albeit with the burn of liquid courage in her throat.

Quinn’s lecture had offered a welcome escape that morning but the professor’s words had drifted unnoticed past her ears, lost to the shadowy corners of the lecture hall as she floundered in a sea of whys and hows. So much of Quinn’s life was changing and she wasn’t sure how ready she was for the friendship she’d always considered unalterable to do the same. For the self doubt that would inevitably keep her awake over the coming nights. 

Something she’d always taken for granted about herself had been destroyed beneath the soft strokes of Santana’s fingers against her. The words that used to easily fall from her tongue had been washed away by the taste of her best friend. 

( _I’m really not that into that_ , she’d once said, what felt like a lifetime ago. It hadn’t been a complete dismissal, even then.)

It was only Santana’s near constant presence in her life over the past few months that had put an end to Quinn’s early morning escapes. Even when she wasn’t there, a forgotten hoody or a cheesy tourist gift from New York (more often than not a dirty postcard) was enough to mark Santana’s claim on the room and on her thoughts. 

Santana was no fleeting visitor in her life. She was no momentary blip that could be overcome in order to follow the path her parents had planned for her. That realisation had made Quinn want to sift through her feelings, to reject the trademark Fabray indifference she’d built up against snide comments uttered between gulps of whiskey. She’d still been too proud - too scared - to reach out to anyone she knew for help. All roads lead to Brittany in that respect, and she didn’t want to hash this out with someone that had known them all during school. Once again, Yale provided an answer: confidential night-time ‘listeners’, volunteer student counsellors you could reach through a few nervously punched digits.

Eventually, Quinn had found the bravery to linger in the warmth provided by Santana’s body. She still made sure to be up by the time her best friend’s eyes fluttered open, unsure how Santana would react to waking up with her arms wrapped around Quinn, but she’d begun allowing herself the pleasure of working through her stack of novels in those quiet moments before Santana woke, tethered to reality only by her embrace. 

(A desperate fear had plagued Quinn that waking up to a flash of hazel would remind Santana that she was waking up next to the wrong blonde.)

(Santana had quickly faked a cough into the crook of her elbow to hide her shy smile at finding Quinn curled in her desk chair when she woke up, a novel propped up on her knees and her lip caught between her teeth.)

They danced the routine for weeks, though it was unknowing on Santana’s part, and Quinn drew comfort from the familiarity of the choreography. She ignored how her skin tingled with a keen sense of loss whenever she slid out of bed and fought the urge to run her fingers through Santana’s hair to gently ease her out of sleep. It wasn’t until two weeks ago that she remembered improvisation had always been Santana’s style and her carefully established rules disintegrated. The flutter of Santana’s eyelids had signalled Quinn’s departure from the bed, yet the arms around her waist had tightened before she could slip away. She’d frozen, unsure what to do as the scrunch of Santana’s nose told her she had mere seconds before she woke up. 

The arms locked around her waist had tensed briefly, Santana’s sleepy gaze painting a red flush across Quinn’s cheeks and neck, before the mattress had dipped. Santana had shuffled closed to press a soft kiss to her shoulder, a rough ‘Morning, Q’ falling from her lips. 

Just like that, cuddling in the mornings became something they did.

(Santana knows it’s not something friends do but ignorance remains one of her closest allies. The beat of Quinn’s heart and the smell of old paper is enough to keep the panic tucked away in the back of her mind.)

“What? Don’t be… San, come on, that’s silly,” Quinn says weakly. It’s not silly, she knows it’s not; Santana’s absence had hurt her deeply.

“It’s not silly,” Santana responds fiercely, echoing Quinn’s thoughts as she fights the prickle of guilty tears. “Fuck, you were kicked out of your home, Q, and I was too fucking self-absorbed to actually stand up and act like your best friend.” 

If Santana had thought she felt guilty before, it’s nothing compared to how she feels now. It’s as if finally apologising to Quinn has revealed the true extent of her betrayal and in that moment, she is convinced she will never forgive herself.

“Come here,” Quinn whispers and Santana almost refuses before Quinn’s insistent hands guide her up to lie alongside her. “Please don’t apologise, Santana.”

Santana almost smirks at the familiar eyebrow quirk Quinn uses to silence the objection she can tell is brewing.

“You were dealing with your own stuff back then. I mean, I was practically non-existent when Finn… when everything went on with Finn and the commercial and your grandmother,” Quinn says softly, afraid of dredging up Santana’s own trauma. “Did I wish you were around more at the time? Yes. But I got through it. I got through it and I’m stronger for it, and there’s a beautiful little girl out there to prove it. I forgave you a long time ago, Santana.”

The conviction shining clearly in Quinn’s eyes, in her tone, almost floors Santana. Forgiveness had never been the easiest for either of them and she doesn’t know how to react to Quinn bestowing it upon her. Nothing she could say feels worthy so she settles for nodding jerkily and hoping Quinn understands what she means.

Silence falls between them again, pressed almost nose to nose in the small bed. Something else begins to build as the seconds tick away - as Santana’s eyes drift to Quinn’s lips, as a flush blooms over Quinn’s cheeks, as the memories of last night play out in each other’s eyes - but it’s banished as quickly as it appears. The connection snaps as Santana rolls onto her back and fixes her gaze on the ceiling.

Quinn mirrors her actions, swallowing down her rising bravery as the sting of rejection skates across her skin. 

The awkwardness swells as minutes pass without a word and it’s almost enough to make Santana flee, to pack up and run and catch a train back to New York today. Only the knowledge of how much she would regret it stops her. Instead, she sighs and turns to face Quinn, wincing at the frozen look on her face. 

“Breakfast?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the avoidance of doubt: in the mini-universe I'm constructing here, Quinn absolutely has been impacted by Beth but I'm pretending that S3 subplot of her trying to regain custody didn't happen. Also, while I'm playing around in the Glee universe again, I'm probably not going to rewatch S4 so some of the in-show references maybe be slightly off. Just... go with it.


	3. Three

Santana’s only been introduced to a handful of Quinn’s friends at Yale. 

(She’s always introduced as ‘Santana, we went to high school together’. No explanation of the part she plays in Quinn’s life now. No… label. Santana can never tell if she’s disappointed or relieved.)

There’s the small group from her dorm block with whom they walk to parties. There are the various classmates or study group colleagues who drop by for a book or some notes, yet invariably end up sticking around for a conversation. There’s the sweet Swedish student who works in Quinn’s favourite coffee shop, perfect for Kurt if he weren’t still so hung up on his ex-boyfriend (a grace Santana privately thinks Blaine doesn’t deserve after his recent behaviour, even as she refuses to draw a comparison with Brittany). 

She’s sure she would have remembered the smirk plastered across the face of the boy approaching their table, tucked away in the corner of the coffee shop by the window so they can lazily watch the stream of people past the glass. The ease with which he throws himself down on the empty chair next to Quinn suggests he knows her, but the tightness of the smile Quinn directs at him says she’d hesitate to label him a friend.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” he says, leaning heavily on the edge of the table and smirking at Santana in a way he clearly thinks is attractive.

“Stefan, this is Santana. We went to high school together. San… this is Stefan. He’s in my Theatre Studies class,” Quinn explains. She shoots an apologetic glance at Santana over the rim of the coffee cup she lifts to hide the grimace as Stefan somehow seems to take up more space after the introduction.

Santana immediately decides she doesn’t like him and the arrogance she can see simmering beneath the surface, held back just enough that he can pass it off as a charming confidence. He’s the picture of entitlement and exactly the kind of person she’d worried about Quinn encountering when she first told her she’d got into Yale. 

(It’s exactly the kind of person Santana had worried about Quinn dating at Yale.)

“Santana,” Stefan repeats, and Santana hates the way her name sounds coming from his mouth. “Pretty name for a pretty girl.”

A brutal put-down springs to the tip of her tongue, jabs ready to spear Stefan’s inflated ego, but she swallows them down. She doesn’t want to cause any unnecessary trouble for Quinn. Instead, she tips her head at the intruder, choosing not to comment on his obvious glance at her cleavage.

“So, Santana, I don’t know if you have any plans later but I know a great bar we can get into, no questions asked,” he says, trailing off suggestively as he waggles his eyebrows at Santana in a way that makes her want to slap him.

“She’s not interested,” Quinn cuts in, setting her coffee cup down sharply on the table. 

(Santana would be lying if she said her heart didn’t clench at the possessive edge to Quinn’s voice.)

Stefan shrugs. “Most girls aren’t until they are.” Santana almost gawps at him. Sure, there were boys in Lima with an oversized sense of entitlement, who believed that taking a girl out for a 2-for-1 meal at Breadstix meant she should be on her back in his bed within the hour, but Santana hasn’t met anyone who seemingly took so much pleasure in being a walking red flag. 

“Well, I’m really not,” she eventually forces out through gritted teeth. “I’m gay, so the only way I’ll be going to any bar in New Haven is with Quinn.”

She means to say ‘is with a girl’ but Quinn’s name tumbles from her lips as Santana glances at her. Quinn freezes, a flush creeping up her neck, as Stefan whips his head around to face her, eyes gleaming as if he’s stumbled onto some scandalous information. 

“You didn’t say she was your _girlfriend_ , Quinn,” Stefan drawls. His smirk has morphed into an outright leer at this point, eyes flicking between the two of them. 

The denial spills from Santana’s lips before she can stop herself. 

(Before Quinn can reject the notion herself. She doesn’t know if she could stand to hear that.)

“We’re not… she’s not my girlfriend. Christ, a gay woman can be friends with another woman without it meaning they’re dating. Why don’t you fuck off back to whatever overpriced apartment Daddy pays for and leave us in peace?”

The bite in Santana’s voice is enough to prompt him to stand and walk away, chair scraping noisily against the floor as he does, yet the smirk is still in place and it takes everything in Santana not to follow him. She takes a deep breath before turning back to Quinn. 

Quinn won’t look at her.

Her gaze is fixed resolutely out of the window, jaw muscles flexing in a way Santana knows means she’s clenching her teeth tight, tight, tight. 

“I’m sorry, Q,” she says softly. “I didn’t meant to snap, I don’t want to cause any issues for you in your classes. I just… Quinn, can you look at me please?”

She’s unprepared for the hurt in Quinn’s eyes. All the times she’s hurt Quinn in the past - all the times she sold her down the river for a step up on the high school ladder, all the times she betrayed their tacit best friend pact - pale in comparison to the pain and sorrow in Quinn’s eyes. 

Silence stretches uncomfortably between them and Santana feels like she’s broken something.

“You’re taking it a lot better than I thought you would,” she says eventually, hoping her weak attempt at teasing will ease the tension that’s settled over the table. “I thought you’d have ripped his head off for thinking that you’re…”

“That I’m what, Santana?” There’s a strange edge to Quinn’s voice, a tangled mess of emotions layered beneath the words. 

“I don’t know, that you’re gay or bi or whatever.”

Quinn shifts uncomfortably in her seat and Santana recognises the look that flashes across her face. It’s the same look she used to see every day in mirror. 

“Would it be such a bad thing if I was?” Quinn asks quietly. She turns away from Santana again, shoulders rising ever so slightly as if bracing herself for impact.

( _Yes_ , Santana thinks. _Yes, because then we’d have to address this_.)

“Look… I’m _trying_ , Santana,” Quinn says, that same edge to her voice. It feels like she’s answering a question Santana hasn’t asked, planting a flag somewhere she refuses to acknowledge exists. The sense of being out of control returns as a heavy silence falls over the table again, unbroken until Quinn quietly suggests they head back to her dorm. 

* * *

They avoid anything approaching a serious topic for the rest of the day. They keep their conversation light and if it feels forced, if they can feel unspoken words lingering in the corners of the small dorm room, neither dares to mention it. 

Where they’d settled into a routine over the past few weeks, comfortable lingering in each other’s presence, comfortable with eyes roaming here and a soft brush of fingers there, now they move around each other jerkily. Quinn excuses herself to change in the bathroom for the first time in longer than Santana cares to remember. 

It’s a relief when there’s a knock on Quinn’s door. They both have believable smiles in place by the time Quinn opens it to reveal who Santana has dubbed the ‘party troop’: the group from Quinn’s corridor they always end up walking to parties with. Quinn invites them in - not that there’s really the space - as Santana apologises for the delay, searching for her purse until Quinn hands it to her. She nods gratefully, her sheepish smile mirrored on Quinn’s face, before ushering the group out of the door with the demand that they all ‘walk fast, I want to get my drink on’. 

Before Santana had started visiting, Quinn had never made an appearance at any of the Sunday night parties that took place across campus. Her duty to her psychology lecture early on Monday mornings had always crushed the draw of cheap beer and worse conversation, but class has been awkward since she started rejecting Professor Mitchell’s advances and she has more than enough friends in the class who’ll let her copy notes. Neither of them are awake enough by Saturday night to venture out to a party - Santana is always drained from working the closing shift at the bar the night before, Quinn equally worn out from a mammoth day of studying in order to free up her weekend. Instead Saturday nights are reserved for the stack of DVDs on Quinn’s dorm room floor and whatever alcohol Santana has procured from New York bodegas with her ridiculous fake ID, and Quinn’s allowed herself to be dragged out on Sundays. 

The bodies spilling out onto the grass confirm they’ve arrived at the right place. The varying levels of drunkenness and nudity on display, as well as the thumping bass from inside the house, suggests they’ve arrived just as the party starts to hit its peak. Santana directs them through the front door and immediately veers over to the kitchen - somehow she knows she’s going to need more alcohol in her bloodstream to deal with tonight. 

Santana loses sight of Quinn once she’s sloppily mixed the group their first drinks, but she’s not especially worried. The party doesn’t seem rowdy enough for anything seriously troubling to happen and Quinn hadn’t said she planned on getting spectacularly drunk. She follows Quinn’s friends to a cluster of seats that become available in the corner opposite the makeshift dance floor, easily falling into conversation with them as she shoots sporadic glances around the room in search of Quinn. 

She must be drunker than she realised, as an hour passes before she knows it. Worry begins to creep around the dullness of heavily poured vodka - there are enough men at this party with a similar air to Stefan that Santana is concerned by Quinn’s continued absence. She mumbles an excuse to Quinn’s friends that falls on deaf ears and pushes herself up from her seat, intent on finding the blonde. 

She’s en route to the kitchen when she spots Quinn, leaning against the wall on the other side of the writhing mass of dancers and chatting animatedly to a girl Santana doesn’t recognise. Relief extinguishes her concern before white-hot jealousy flares in her stomach. Fire flickers behind her eyes as she watches the way Quinn giggles at the hand lightly trailing up and down her arm, the way the other girl’s arm is pressed against the wall by Quinn’s head and her body is tilted towards her, and the way that, even as she watches, the pair have shuffled closer together. 

Santana drains the rest of her drink, slamming the empty cup on the nearest clear surface as she forces her way through the room. She’s just drunk enough that the jealousy coursing through her spurs her on rather than throwing her into a panic, and her smirk falls naturally into place as she steps up to the pair, her arm sliding around Quinn's waist.

“There you are, babe. Thought I’d lost you,” Santana says playfully, hoping the other girl assumes Quinn stiffens in her arms because she’s been caught flirting. Santana leans in to nuzzle Quinn’s cheek affectionately, deliberately ignoring her attempted suitor, as the alcohol stifles the voices in her head that would normally be screaming that she needs to stop. 

“I didn’t realise you had a girlfriend, Q,” the other girl rasps and Santana bristles. That’s _her_ nickname, one that rings with years of shared history. It’s not for drunk students in search of a risk-free fuck. 

Quinn shifts uncomfortably in Santana’s hold.

(Santana doesn’t miss the way Quinn’s hand has dropped, unconsciously, to the small of her back.)

“What my girl has,” Santana says, smile turning vicious, “is absolutely no time for your desperate attempt at flirting, as tempting as I’m sure you made the offer of a night of disappointment sound. How’s about you run on home and put those fingers of yours to good use on yourself because I can assure you that _nobody_ wants to go home with you and your budget Megan Rapinoe-looking ass.” 

Santana’s eyes sparkle with a threat in the poorly lit room and it doesn’t take long for the other girl to stamp away. Quinn waits until she’s disappeared into the garden before she shoves Santana away, dragging a hand through her sweaty locks in frustration. 

(Santana positively aches to drag her tongue along Quinn’s collarbones, captivated by how they glisten with sweat.)

“What the fuck was that, Santana?”

Santana opens her mouth to respond but her jumbled explanation is cut off by Quinn shaking her head irritably. “You know what, don’t fucking bother. I’m going home.”

Quinn pushes off the wall and bumps against Santana’s shoulder forcefully. Santana has no choice but to follow her silently across campus back to her dorm, head lowered with a guilt she’s too drunk to understand. 

For the first time, Santana sleeps in pyjamas she’s only continued packing for appearances’ sake. 

* * *

Neither of them mention Quinn’s outburst the next day, the morning lost to the usual rush to get Santana to the train station on time. The awkwardness has returned, however, resting heavily on their shoulders as it cuts conversations prematurely short. The bus ride to the station is usually spent imagining ridiculous scenarios Kurt and Rachel will have found themselves in over the weekend without Santana - how the pair are still so lacking in street smarts baffles her - but today it is silent. They stare out of different windows, enough space left between them that they don’t jolt into each other even when the bus clatters over a pothole. 

It feels as if something has broken.

Santana’s half expecting Quinn to simply watch her leave the bus at the station but Quinn follows her, gravel crunching beneath her feet as she jumps down. The platform is all but deserted at this early hour. There’s no distraction from the wall Quinn has built around herself. She’s held herself back from Santana all morning and Santana has had enough - she needs, desperately needs to know whether she’s irreparably damaged whatever was building between the two of them. But just as she opens her mouth to speak, Quinn beats her to it.

“I need you to give me _something_ , S.”

Santana quirks her eyebrow, confused, and Quinn sighs.

“I need you to at least give me some idea of what we are. Or what we might be, could be, whatever. You say you’re not my girlfriend but we have sex every weekend, we cuddle naked which you know is more intimate than I’ve been with most people. You know what stuff like that means. Then there’s whatever the fuck that was last night,” Quinn says. Her voice is soft but the words thunder in Santana’s ears. “I just… I need to know if it’s okay to greet you off the train with a kiss or to hold your hand when we go to breakfast. If I should tell people that flirt with me that I’m seeing someone.”

Santana looks away. She can’t bear to look at Quinn when she’s being so brave. 

“What are we, Santana?” Quinn begs. Santana’s heart clenches painfully at the desperation colouring her words.

The truth strains to burst forth from Santana’s lips. Her arms itch to wrap themselves around Quinn so she can press kisses into her hair, but that ever-present fear saps her strength and kills the words on the tip of her tongue.

“We’re just having fun, Q,” she mutters as the train pulls into view. 

There’s hurt in Quinn’s eyes, but it’s not the only thing Santana can feel in her gaze. There’s also scorn, as if Quinn could see the words Santana still refuses to say. 

They both know what Santana is. The word hangs heavily between them, quashing any goodbye as she turns her back on Quinn and steps onto the train. It burns her ears with shame long after she’s stepped off at the other end into Penn Station, the din of New York such a contrast to the quiet calm of New Haven but still not enough to drown out the word rattling around her head.

_Coward_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any thoughts/feedback on the story so far would be hugely appreciated.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Santana is scared. Quinn is hurt.

“Hello, Hummelberry? Anyone home?”

Santana’s shoulders slump with relief when there’s no answer from within the apartment. Rachel always leaves early and rarely makes it back to the apartment before 10pm most days, still trying to juggle rehearsals and the remaining NYADA classes she can still fit into her day. Kurt’s schedule is more regular, but by the time her train pulls into Penn Station, he’s usually several hours into handling the day’s latest fashion crisis. 

Her return to New York usually coincides with the apartment being - blissfully - empty but it would have been just her luck for one, or both, of her roommates to be there as she stumbles through the threshold today. As much as she’s come to appreciate Kurt and Rachel - and hold back the instinct to snap at them both she indulged all too frequently during their time together at McKinley - she wants to avoid them both for as long as possible. She doesn’t have the energy to deal with them, or their inevitable questions about her weekend, in the state she’s in. 

Just because Santana has admitted that she probably needs to talk to someone, needs a sympathetic ear to help unpick the twisted situation she’s created with Quinn, it doesn’t mean she’s in a rush to act on that realisation. 

Santana had felt a desperate urge to jump off the train at every station they passed through en route to New York. To jump off and hop on the first train back in the opposite direction, back to New Haven, back to Quinn. Head pressed the train window as she tried to stave off the tears she didn’t deserve to cry, Santana had imagined rushing back to Quinn’s dorm and hammering on the door until she let her in. Until Santana could apologise, could take back what she said, could tell Quinn that she… that she… 

The fantasy had fallen apart every time the train pulled out of a station with Santana still in seat C12, unable to untangle her feelings.

So, no. No questions and no talking. Not until she sorts out her head.

Santana messages her work group chat to see if there are any spare shifts going this evening. She hadn’t been scheduled to work tonight - Mondays are slower even at Coyote Ugly, so they tended to have fewer girls on shift - and she feels dead on her feet. She could easily seclude herself in her section of the apartment for the rest of night - since Santana moved back in, all three of them have tried a lot harder to respect what little privacy walls made of curtains can afford - but Santana knows the distraction of a busy bar, of sweet-talking tips out of tourists, is just what she needs. Plus, it’ll get her out of the apartment and away from Rachel and Kurt’s questions.

(Santana has long suspected that Kurt can tell she’s leaving out some… details about her weekends with Quinn. He’s never said anything, never challenged her, but Santana knows him well enough to read the quirk of his lips and the tilt of his head. She knows that if he asks the right question, she’ll come undone, that the words she’s struggling to form even in her own mind will spill unbidden from her lips, and she isn’t ready for that.) 

By the time Santana’s out of the shower, free from morning commuter grime, there’s already a reply to her message. She’s in luck: Naomi, one of the longest-serving dancers at Coyote and someone who’d immediately taken Santana under her wing when she first started, had come down with a pretty dreadful case of tonsillitis over the weekend and was only too happy for Santana to take her shift tonight. 

(Santana ignores the lump in her throat when she sees there’s no message from Quinn checking that she made it back to New York okay.)

She shoots off a quick message to Naomi, promising to drop in with some ice cream and magazines on her way in to work, then glances around the apartment. Mondays are normally Santana’s ‘life admin’ days - riding high after a weekend in New Haven, it’s usually easy to motivate herself to tackle the tedious aspects of adulthood she prefers to avoid most of the time - but she’s at a loss for how to spend the hours before she heads into Manhattan. 

She’s exhausted, she realises. Physically, mentally, emotionally drained, as if the impact of the last 24 hours has only just hit her. Any lingering motivation Santana had to make something of the day ebbs away and she trudges into her curtained-off space to collapse onto her bed. 

(She clutches her phone to her chest as she dozes off, just in case. It doesn’t vibrate once.)

* * *

_Stupid. Stupid. So, so stupid._

It’s all Quinn can think on the bus back to campus. The self-condemnation loops in her head, drowning out all other thoughts. How could she be so stupid as to put herself out there?

How could she be so stupid as to think that Santana would pick her?

That’s what hurts the most. That Santana won’t pick her. It’s not a case of the feelings she’s only recently begun to slowly, nervously, fearfully recognise not being returned. She knows they are. She _knows_ Santana feels something for her - she’s seen it glimmer in her eyes when she catches Santana staring, felt it in the burning kisses Santana presses to every scar marking her body, heard it in the way Santana whispers her name so tenderly when Quinn first slips inside her. It’s not love, but it’s _something_.

(As much as Quinn has come to enjoy making Santana cry out her name, that whisper and the shaky exhale that follows when Quinn starts to move is by far her favourite sound.)

Long before Quinn had given herself permission to care about those around her, she was adept at reading their feelings. In high school, it’s what helped her rise so swiftly through the hierarchy, knowing exactly how to manipulate her fellow students to get what she needed. Now, it tells her that whatever feelings she might be developing for Santana, whatever possibilities she imagines, Santana does too.

Santana does too, but she still won’t pick Quinn. 

Hurt blooms in Quinn’s chest but she refuses to cry until she’s back in her dorm room. She knows anger will come - she’d felt a flash of it on the platform as Santana ducked away from her bravery, slammed shut the door it had taken all of her courage to push slightly ajar - but Quinn is too overwhelmed by hurt and embarrassment to feel it just yet. 

She had thought Santana could tell that she was trying. Trying to be brave. To be confident. To be herself, and not what she thought Santana wanted - Santana has always, always pushed Quinn to own who she is and stop breaking herself to fit into moulds designed for her by her parents, by her boyfriends, by society’s expectations of girls like her. But maybe she had been stupid to think that it mattered. Maybe she could try and try and try, bleed herself dry with the exertion, and Santana still wouldn’t pick her.

 _Who would pick you?_ she thinks bitterly.

(She tries not to think about the soft looks she’s caught on Santana’s face, the ones that look a lot like picking someone.)

As Quinn clambers down from the bus and heads in the direction of her dorm room, of a safe space in which to break, she thinks about what Santana said at breakfast yesterday about her reaction (or lack thereof) to Stefan thinking she wasn’t straight. She knows Santana would never hold being closeted against someone, not after the power to step out of the closet on her own terms was cruelly robbed from her, but she’s gracious enough to accept - even as her chest feels like it’s caving in and her eyes burn - that Santana may have some hesitation around the lack of… certainty. She knows Santana has gone through most of her life waiting for the other shoe to drop and part of her probably can’t help but expect that now too. 

(Santana exists with a base level of fear running staticky beneath her skin. Quinn knows, because she does too.)

But Quinn hadn’t been lying when she said she’s been trying. She’s self-possessed enough to know this isn’t just a Santana thing, even if she hasn’t so much as thought about another person since Santana kissed her in the moonlight in her dorm room. Hell, she hadn’t even really clocked that she was being flirted with last night until Santana had stormed over and acted the jealous partner. She has been trying: she’s read and sought out resources and used Yale’s student counsellors as a sounding board.

She’s paid attention to how the word _queer_ seems to unlock something in her chest and quieten some of the buzzing around the edges of her mind. 

Even as she hurts, Quinn’s proud of herself for the small (huge) steps she’s taken and resolves not to twist it into a fault, a reason why Santana won’t pick her.

No, she knows why Santana refuses to consider the possibilities between them. She knows why Santana won’t pick her.

Brittany.

Quinn feels so stupid to think she could ever measure up to Santana’s first love. She grimaces through another swell of embarrassment when she realises she’s accidentally made herself an imitation of Brittany: a best friend turned lover, lingering on the edge of something more. It had only been a few months since the wedding - Quinn swallows past the lump in her throat at the memories that spring to mind - and Santana’s obvious heartbreak at the sight of her ex, even as she had tried to hide it beneath jibes about Sam. 

Maybe Santana will never pick her because she’s still waiting for Brittany.

(The rational part of Quinn knows that feeling like she’s losing her friendship with Brittany has destroyed Santana almost as much as their break-up. That losing friends and feeling like she’s to blame impacts her deeply.) 

(Quinn’s rational side is always at its most silent when she’s hurt.)

Tears cloud her vision as she finally unlocks her dorm room door and steps inside, closing it softly behind her. She leans back against the solid wood, overwhelmed in that instant - Santana is _everywhere_ in her small room. No matter where she looks, she can feel Santana’s presence. Gifts, clothes, memories - Santana has left a mark on every inch of her space and it’s too much for her. 

In the grand scheme of things, compared to everything else she’s lost - her family’s unconditional support, her first child, her dignity many times over, even her ability to walk temporarily - losing a what-might-have-been with Santana should barely register.

That’s what she tells herself, commands herself to believe but it’s futile. Leaning against the door, surrounded by Santana and the echoes of possibilities she now assumes are lost, Quinn breaks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments and feedback have really meant a lot. If anyone has thoughts about the latest chapter, I'd really appreciate them.
> 
> The angst won't last forever, I promise.
> 
> Also, for the avoidance of doubt - this story will categorically not shame people for being, or staying, in the closet (either in or out of a relationship), though it may explore some of the different dynamics of a relationship with someone who is closeted and/or discovering their sexuality. Quinn's concern that her lack of definitive statement on her identity is an issue does not mean it actually is an issue.


	5. Five

Quinn eventually cries herself into silence, her knees held tightly to her chest as if she can hold herself together even as it feels like she’s breaking, breaking, breaking apart. Half-dried tears still tacky on her cheeks, she stares around her room. The touches of Santana scattered throughout the small space had previously felt comforting - a solid reminder of Santana’s constancy in her life, even as the boundaries defining what they are to each other shift and flex - but now they are overwhelming.

Suffocating. 

This is her room, _her_ space, but Santana emanates from every corner and Quinn can’t bear it. She had just lost too much too recklessly on a train platform - she won’t lose this too. 

Quinn forces herself up off the floor, swallowing down the emotions she can still feel rippling too close to her breaking point. Though she loathes her father, Quinn has always been perversely grateful that growing up in his house, under his thumb, in the narrow slivers of freedom he permitted had taught her how to cage her feelings. How to hide them away behind an impassive face and not let the world glimpse her pain.

(Santana has always known how best to pull a reaction from Quinn because Santana has always been the same. She'd always understood the instinct to hide within yourself and had always known how to blow past Quinn’s last defence.)

(Quinn wonders if Santana understands the power she has. The power Quinn has accidentally ceded to her.)

She grabs an empty duffel bag and slowly, methodically works her way around the room to remove every trace of Santana. The strip of pictures from the photo booth at the university record store, Santana hiding her face in Quinn’s hair as she laughed. The lipstick Santana had left smudged along the inside of Quinn’s trembling thighs two weekends before. The dog-eared novel Santana had bought her from a second-hand bookstore in New York because ‘I don’t know, Fabray, I just thought you’d enjoy it, don’t make a big thing out of it’. 

Quinn leaves her bed until last, hesitating before she reaches for the oversized shirt stuffed underneath the pillow. Santana had taken to lounging in the shirt (and nothing else) whenever they were in the dorm room - Quinn’s hands shake as she clenches the material in her fists, as she tries to blink away the memories of sliding her hands along smooth skin beneath it, of pushing it off Santana’s shoulder to mark the skin there.

(Quinn still hates the marks on her body most days, but she thinks the ones that bloom from her lips onto Santana’s skin are beautiful.)

Part of her wants to leave the shirt out, to allow herself this one private weakness, but Quinn clenches her jaw and shoves it into the duffel bag before zipping it closed. Now she’s collected everything, Quinn isn’t entirely sure what to do with the bag. Every possible option seems too… final and the weight of the decision sits heavily on her shoulders.

She settles for stuffing it into the empty space beside her drawers, ignoring the way the room still feels like it’s pressing in around her. 

(Quinn can pack away clothes and trinkets but she can’t pull the memories from her head.)

Her phone buzzes and Quinn hates herself for how quickly she pulls it from her pocket, for how desperately she hopes it might be Santana.

It’s not. Of course it’s not.

( _So stupid._ )

Instead it’s a boy from her English literature class - Quinn isn’t entirely sure how he has her number but she can’t find it in herself to care - asking if she wants to join him and a group of their classmates at one of the campus coffee shops to get started on their latest assignment together. Studying floats somewhere near the bottom of the list of things Quinn wants to do in that moment but she agrees to join them. A distraction from the hurt and embarrassment still buzzing around her mind, an escape from the room that feels emptier than it ever has, will do her good. 

She leaves her phone on her desk. 

(She hates that she hopes there’ll be a message from Santana when she gets back.)

* * *

Santana finds it’s easy to avoid Kurt and Rachel.

It helps that she usually leaves for work around the same time Kurt arrives home from his internship. She only has to leave half an hour earlier to avoid him completely, feigning disappointment in their group chat that she keeps missing them and making empty promises to catch them up on her weekend as soon as they can all grab a moment together. 

It helps that when she creeps back into the apartment late at night, both of her roommates are fast asleep.

(Santana stays until closing every night, just to be sure. None of her colleagues question why she seems determined to avoid going home.)

(She pretends it doesn’t tear her apart that there are no new messages from Quinn, all but demanding Santana let her know when she’s made it back to the apartment safely after work.)

By Wednesday evening, she knows Kurt and Rachel suspect it’s not coincidence and unfortunate scheduling keeping Santana away from the apartment. From them. Rachel surprises her by arriving home much earlier than expected, gifted a rare afternoon off to decompress from her busy new life. She squeals at the sight of Santana - ever the performer - and has her wrapped in a tight hug before Santana can really register what is happening or dart for the privacy of the bathroom. 

Were it not for Kurt tumbling through the front door at the very moment Rachel starts to ask about her weekend, his arms laden with canvas bags - “I’m home, children, and I come bearing gifts!” - Santana knows she would be spending the night cornered in a conversation she’s still determined to put off. 

Instead, she uses the commotion of Kurt arriving home with an armful of free samples and promotional gifts sent to the magazine as a cover to slip out of the apartment, thankful she’d had the foresight to pack her bag for work. She’s a little disappointed not to rifle through Kurt’s treats - he always manages to snag the best freebies from work - but it’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make. 

(It’s minor, insignificant, in comparison to everything she sacrificed on the platform in New Haven, turning her back on a future possibility to try and keep hold of a rapidly changing present.)

When she gets home in the early hours of the morning, almost swaying on her feet with exhaustion, Santana finds a small bundle of make-up on the coffee table alongside some chopsticks and a carton of Chinese food. Her favourite, she notes absently, as she picks up the folded paper resting on top.

_Welcome back, Santana. I saved you a small selection from my haul earlier - you’re welcome. The colours should work wonderfully on you. I hope you appreciate that I fought off Rachel for the lipstick, but what’s Satan without her bold red lip?_

_Rachel wasn’t sure if you’d eaten before you left for work so I included your favourite when we had some food delivered earlier. It’ll doubtless be cold by the time you make it back home, but I’ve seen you inhale leftovers too many times over the past few months to presume it will bother you. How you maintain your figure with your eating habits is beyond me…_

_Hopefully your schedule eases up soon so we can see you. The apartment’s been disturbingly free of sarcasm recently. Kurt x_

Santana roughly wipes away the tears drawn out by the note, thankful its author isn’t there to see them. She drops down onto her favourite chair and pulls the food towards her - it hadn’t hit her until that moment just how hungry she was.

(Quinn hadn’t known how to use chopsticks until Santana, wrapped only in Quinn’s favourite blanket, had taught her several weeks ago. Watching Quinn try and spectacularly fail to pick up anything had made Santana laugh until she cried.)

(When Quinn had finally managed to pick something up, raising one lone pepper aloft as if it were a gold medal, Santana hadn’t been able to stop her soft smile.)

She feels guilty for how she’s treating her roommates. She doesn’t want them to think she’s reverting to the cold bitch they’d first encountered at high school. Santana had had a grudging fondness for them both during Glee club, but it had blossomed into a genuine appreciation since cementing her place in the apartment. Even if she still does frequently curse their ‘goddamn fucking _infuriating_ ‘ behaviour, Santana is glad to be living with them.

Rationally, she knows it’s ridiculous to avoid talking to them. The words feel like they’re punching out from her chest, clawing their way up her throat in a desperate attempt to be let loose. Kurt and Rachel are among those Santana finds it easiest to open up to, and certainly the best option for her right now. If this conversation is anything but face-to-face, Santana knows she’ll find endless excuses to skirt around the issue, which rules out Mercedes. Talking to her mother about relationships is always exceptionally awkward and Brittany is… Brittany.

But knowing it’s irrational to stay closed off doesn’t make it easier for Santana to open up. Falling back on her high school techniques of evasion and denial, evasion and denial, evasion and denial feels inevitable when she can feel fear spark beneath her skin with every breath. With every clench of her heart. With every phantom feeling of Quinn’s skin pressed hotly against hers. 

Santana is so, so scared. She’s scared by the strength of feelings for Quinn that have blindsided her, growing and growing without her noticing. She’s scared she’s misread Quinn’s feelings or that Quinn will realise falling for Santana is a mistake. She’s scared that she might be moving on from Brittany, from her first love, from the security that’s kept her tethered all these years. She’s scared she’ll ruin another friendship, scared that she won’t survive losing someone else important to her, scared that she’ll try to build with something with Quinn and it won’t work out.

(She’s scared that it will work out. Scared that she can see herself loving Quinn.)

She is so scared and if she talks… if she talks, Santana has to acknowledge the fear thrumming constantly within her. She isn’t sure she has the strength for that. 

* * *

Her phone lies on the bed in front of her as Santana stares at it, teeth pulling at her lower lip. 

She isn’t sure how long she’s been sat there, her chin resting on her knee as she curls into herself, trying to find the courage to message Quinn.

Santana knows it’s on her to reach out. She’s the one who had rejected Quinn’s offer of _something_ , who had shut down the idea almost as soon as the words had left Quinn’s lips.

She’s the one who had run away. 

She knows it has to be her who reaches out but she’s struggled to find the words all week, her thumbs hovering over countless empty message screens before the brief flash of bravery fades away. 

How can a message rebuild things between them, especially when Santana can’t get her thoughts in order? How can a message capture everything that lies unspoken between them - the confusion, the tangled mess of feelings Santana almost can’t bear to unpick, the sheer _want_ she feels and the fear it provokes?

How can a message begin to undo the hurt Santana hates herself for causing Quinn?

It’d be much easier to not message Quinn - to not risk making things any worse, to avoid confirming that she’s lost Quinn when that’s the one thing she was trying to avoid - but it’s Thursday. It’s Thursday and were it any other week, Santana would be texting Quinn to see if she wants anything bringing from New York. 

(Were it any other week, Santana would be ignoring the excitement in the pit of her stomach, the warmth in her chest at the thought of seeing Quinn.)

It’s Thursday, and though Santana is convinced Quinn won’t want to see her, she needs to know for sure. 

Something casual, she thinks. If she messages Quinn as if everything’s normal, maybe they can ease into addressing everything that lies between them. 

( _Coward_.)

_Hey Q, just checking - we all good for this weekend? Anything special you want me to bring up? I know you’ve been craving proper cheesecake recently, rather than that shit they have in your coffee shop…_

Grey dots appear almost immediately before disappearing. Santana’s whole body is tense, on edge as she waits, hopes, prays for a response. She tries not to lose faith as minutes tick by without the grey dots reappearing - if Quinn had been ready to respond so quickly, it must mean she’s been waiting for Santana to message her. It must mean she’s been waiting for Santana to reach out. Maybe, just maybe, Santana can still salvage this… 

_I have plans this weekend. Don’t come to New Haven._

Or maybe not. 

Maybe Quinn has (finally) realised that she’s worthy of so much more than what Santana has been too cowardly to give her. 

There’s a ringing in her ears and the whole world feels off-kilter, like she’s pitching forward and nothing she grabs will keep her stable. With numb fingers, Santana offers up her remaining shifts for the week to her work group chat. They’re snapped up before her phone screen can go black - Santana knows she’ll probably regret giving away her two most profitable shifts but everything hurts, everything hurts and the ringing in her ears won’t go away and the thought of dancing or forcing a smile for anyone makes her feel sick. 

She reaches beneath her bed and pulls a bottle of vodka from her stash - she’s learnt to hide the good stuff from Kurt and his friends, who seem to consider any alcohol in the apartment fair game when they’re getting ready for a night out. 

It’s not sensible. It’s way too early to start drinking. It’s not even something she’s ever really done before, drinking to forget, but everything feels too much, too much, too much and Santana desperately needs to block it out. 

She’s too out of it to notice Kurt’s concern when he arrives home several hours later to find her wrapped in blankets in her favourite chair, clinging to his boyfriend pillow, her vacant eyes swollen in a way that can only mean she’s been crying. 

* * *

Quinn has never had a more productive week at Yale. Even in those first days - when she was desperate to prove that she belonged, that she was worthy, that she had earned her place through more than the abridged version of her teenage trauma provided in her application letter - Quinn had never matched the ferocity with which she has tackled every task this week. 

When she isn’t in class - moving to sit near the front, where she won’t get away with slacking off or letting her attention wander - or in a study group, Quinn sequesters herself in the library. She ploughs ahead with her required readings and loses herself in literary theory and historical debates and chemical equations.

(She avoids psychology and her professor’s insistence on introspection.)

By the time Quinn makes it back to her dorm room each night, she is wrung out, barely enough energy left to change into something comfy for bed. She knows it’s not a healthy solution long-term, tiring herself out so she doesn’t pay attention to how cold, how empty her room feels since she cleared scattered items into the duffel bag she still doesn’t know what to do with, but for now it works. For now, she can pretend she’s studying so intensely because she values her education, can pretend she doesn’t feel hurt and embarrassed and like she’s always second choice.

Santana’s message shatters that illusion. 

It pulls the feelings she’s been trying to push away all week sharply into focus and Quinn wants to hate her for it. She wants to hate Santana for being so casual, for acting like she hadn’t turned her back on Quinn, for pretending they can slip back into the comfort of something undefined. 

Quinn wants to hate Santana for how she wants to pretend along with her. For how she wants to reply that she doesn’t need anything special, she just needs Santana. 

(For how she still wants to tell Santana, even now, that she is special.)

Only her pride stops her. Santana doesn’t get to hurt her - hurt _them_ \- and then act like nothing needs fixing. 

Quinn wants Santana to fight for her so she issues her a challenge, tells Santana not to come to New Haven. 

( _Please fight me on this. Please fight for me_.)

It’s several long hours before her phone buzzes. Quinn has long since left the library, realising after half an hour of reading and rereading the same paragraph that she was too anxious to get anything else done. 

Quinn holds her breath as she unlocks her phone, hoping hoping hoping that this is Santana fighting for her.

It’s not. The message is from Coco, one of the girls from her corridor, asking if Quinn wants to come to her sort-of-boyfriend’s party across campus that night.

There’s nothing from Santana except blue ticks and silence.

Quinn says yes to the party.

(Later that night, resolve softened by the alcohol in her bloodstream and the taste of regret on her lips, Quinn unzips the duffel bag and pulls out Santana’s shirt. _Just this one weakness_ , she tries to convince herself as she slips it over head and curls up in bed.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found writing this chapter quite hard and I'm not overly thrilled with how it turned out, but there's only so many times I can write and re-write it without driving myself up the wall... I generally struggle writing bridge chapters (which this is) but hopefully you still enjoy it and get the sense that it's carrying the story forward. 
> 
> Resolution is coming, I promise. It's just that these two are sad, scared 19/20 year olds and (from experience) that always tends to make situations more complicated. Always two steps forward, one step back with these two when it comes to open communication/acknowledging feelings. Hell, sometimes it feels like one step forward, two steps back... 
> 
> Please do let me know what you think of this chapter. I really appreciate all your comments.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santana realises some things.

Santana isn’t looking for the photos when she stumbles across them. She isn’t prepared for how they shatter her morning.

(How they shatter her.)

She’s avoided social media all week, even going so far as to delete the apps from her phone so she doesn’t get caught by a bout of wistful yearning and spend hours scrolling back through profiles she should probably avoid. In the first weeks after they broke up, Brittany had still sent her memes incessantly, tagged her in the comments of videos she thought Santana would enjoy, but that had dropped off long before the wedding. Now Brittany posts photo after photo of her and Sam, silly and playful in ways they couldn’t be publicly for the longest time, and it always feels like a gut punch.

(Quinn had posted a picture of the strip of photobooth snaps on Instagram several weeks ago. Santana’s stomach still flips thinking about it, thinking about Quinn’s gleeful smile and the easy way she’d slung her arm around Santana’s shoulders.)

( _So happy you two are hanging out so much!!_ , Brittany had commented. Santana had stared at the notification for a long moment before locking her phone, a familiar unease settling over her.)

Between that and the radio silence from Quinn - a silence Santana knows she’s responsible for, a silence she suspects Quinn would drop if Santana were brave enough to challenge it - avoiding social media had seemed like the most sensible course of action. 

However, Santana’s comfortable breaking her self-imposed ban this morning to check on Facebook - none of her friends really use it that much anymore except for sharing life updates for their aunts and uncles and grandparents, so it feels the least likely to disrupt the calmer mood she’s managed to settle into over the course of the weekend. 

She hadn’t missed the surprise over Kurt and Rachel’s faces when she emerged from her bedroom yesterday morning, hours after she should have been on a train to New Haven. She hadn’t missed the way Kurt had touched Rachel’s hand and shot her a gentle warning look when she’d opened her mouth to, presumably, ask what Santana was still doing there. 

It was a sign of how much all three of them had grown in the scant months since high school that, instead of ploughing on regardless, Rachel had swallowed down whatever she’d clearly planned to say and offered to pour Santana a cup of coffee. 

They’d treated her carefully all day, tip-toeing around her like she was some sort of wounded animal ready to lash out if anyone acknowledged her vulnerabilities. It should have pissed her off more than it did - high school Santana would have torn them to shreds for daring to treat her like she was weak - but she was so weary, exhausted to her very core, that it was easier to let it wash over her. 

(She’d ignored how reminiscent it was of her conversations with her mother after breaking up with Brittany.)

Santana had kept herself busy with manufactured errands all day. Sure, her bed sheets probably didn’t laundering, it probably wasn’t urgent to find the perfect shade of paint for the wood-framed mirror she’d salvaged from their neighbour’s clear-out, but it had kept her mind occupied. It had stopped her thinking about Quinn. 

(About hands that burned hot hot hot as they touched her.)

(About how there were so many more shades glittering in Quinn’s eyes than she could ever have imagined.)

She’d kept herself busy and when Rachel had tentatively suggested a roommate movie night, Santana had said yes. She’d laughed along to the (blessedly free of romance) comedy Kurt had chosen, felt better than she had in days, and had woken up this morning without feeling like regret was pressing her down into the mattress. 

Feeling more together than she has all week gives Santana the motivation to be productive, to use the extra day to organise herself. To plot out the next stage of her life. Santana likes working at the bar, loves the buzz she gets from dancing, but the hours aren’t the most sociable and the schedule can change wildly from month to month. She wants something a bit more consistent, something that will allow her to enrol in an online undergraduate course and still earn her degree. Louisville hadn’t been right for her - too similar to McKinley, stifling despite its size - but Santana still values her education. Besides, she’s hedging her bets - though performing for a living is a (rarely uttered) dream, Santana knows it’s a difficult for people who look like her and who love like her and who don’t already have connections to break through. Pursuing a degree that would lead to a career that’s at least adjacent to music seems a sensible option. 

(“I think that’s a great idea, San,” Quinn had said when Santana had whispered her plan across the pillow early one morning, the pride in her voice making Santana flush.)

She’d opened Facebook to message her cousin. They don’t speak as much as they did before - before the commercial, before Santana was cast out by her grandmother, before distant relatives had filled their answering machine with messages her parents still feel guilty about not deleting in time because they all knew Santana would never be able to forget them - but he’s been trying to make amends in recent months for cutting off contact. Santana can’t decide between music production or publicity and PR, so she wants to call in one of the many, many favours he owes her and get some information from his wife about her comms degree. 

Of course it’s then that Santana sees the photos which tear through the facade of stability, of calm, she’s built this morning.

She knows it’s Quinn instantly. She recognises the messy bun Quinn drags her hair into when she gets too hot at a party after one too many beers. She recognises the top she’s pretty sure has been missing a button since she’d ripped it off Quinn, craving the soft skin hidden beneath it. She recognises the hand curled possessively around the neck of the boy she is pressed up against.

The boy she is pressed up against.

Santana tracks her eyes back and forth over the picture as the blood pounds in her ears, torturing herself by burning every pixel into her retinas until she’s sure she’ll see Quinn kissing this anonymous boy whenever she blinks. 

He probably has no idea of the mess he’s waded into. Quinn had always done this, dragged in unwitting players to help punish those closest to her, and Santana supposes cowardly lies on a train platform were all the motivation she needed to fall back on old habits. 

She clicks onto Quinn’s profile before she can stop herself. She can’t bear to find out but she needs, needs to know if there are more photos.

There are. 

There’s another one, two, three images, each featuring a carbon copy of the boy in the first picture. The kind of boy Quinn was expected to end up with. The kind of boy Quinn’s mother would let her bring home, the kind of boy Quinn’s sister would compliment her on. 

Jealousy _burns_ in Santana’s stomach, flaming white heat as everything seems to narrow to the screen. She has no right to it - no right to _Quinn_ \- but she can’t stop it.

Santana knows Quinn is punishing her. Quinn is punishing her and Santana is sure she deserves it, sure she must do penance for stamping out the flicker of hope in Quinn’s eyes, but the knife-twist of pain in her chest still has her gasping out. 

It hurts in a way she’s only been hurt twice before. It hurts like Artie, like Sam, hurts in a way that makes it impossible to say she was only having fun with Quinn. Makes it impossible to ignore the strength of feelings part of her still thought were reserved for Brittany.

It doesn’t feel as much of a betrayal of Brittany and their history as she imagined it would. Hell, she felt more guilt over that one damn glance in the library than she does now but she’s still rocked by the realisation - a realisation she’d been having in stages for weeks now, denying it at every step - that Quinn has replaced Brittany. In her head, in her priorities, in her feelings. 

(Should she have let her?)

Her only experience of caring about someone this much had ended in disaster. Santana doubts she has the strength to rebuild herself a second time. She didn’t just lose a girlfriend when she broke up with Brittany - she lost years of water fights and TV marathons and sneaking out and failed attempts to stay awake for the sunrise. She still feels the emptiness now, gaping wounds whenever she tries to remember happy laughter under the Lima sun.

Even now, with her feelings drawn irreversibly into the light, part of Santana - the part that was always responsible for her desperate attempts at self-preservation in the beds of the McKinley football team - begs her not to risk suffering the same fate with Quinn.

The swoop in her chest tells her she has no choice. It’s not love, but whatever it is, it’s no longer something she can deny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to yell at me in the comments. I love hearing from you all.
> 
> (And, as always, I promise this is leading somewhere - much as I love angst, I'm not keeping the story trapped in a never-ending angst-fest.)


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santana gets surprisingly vulnerable. Kurt dishes out some tough love.

“So, are we going to talk about it?”

Santana looks at Kurt across the table. He’d arrived home from his internship earlier than usual, claiming Isabelle had decided to give all the interns the afternoon off - which Santana absolutely does not believe, because who gives someone a _Monday_ afternoon off? - and insisting Santana come out for a coffee with him. She had wanted to say no, she could tell Kurt knew she wanted to say no, but Santana had felt like she owed him some kind of explanation. 

She had basically shut down after seeing the photos of Quinn, too broken and shaken up to even cry. It had felt like she was underwater and even now, a day later, Santana feels sluggish. She’d spent the entire day in her room, retreating back behind her curtain-walls before either Rachel or Kurt had woken up and collapsing on her back on her bed. Dread and regret and jealousy and _hurt_ had blocked out every other thought and Santana can’t explain how the hours had slipped away. All she knows is that she must have fallen into a fitful nap at one point, as she had woken up to a dark sky outside and a plate of food perched carefully at the foot of her bed. 

Santana would put money on it having been Kurt who put it there. 

It makes her a little uneasy that she’s let herself get into such a state that Kurt’s had to take care of her not once, but twice in the past seven days. Santana hates feeling weak or like a burden on anyone, but she can’t deny that it settles something inside her to have someone other than Quinn and Brittany looking out for her.

To have a relationship she can’t fuck up in the way she’s fucked up with Brittany. The way she’s fucking up with Quinn. 

“About what?” she asks evenly. Santana wants to explain herself, to share some of the feelings shredding her sanity to pieces, but she’s not going to make a fool herself by opening up only to find Kurt means Rachel’s latest hyper-fixation or the price of hummus in their local deli.

( _A coward, even now_.)

Kurt stares at her knowingly but Santana keeps her face neutral. Four years under a near sociopathic cheerleading coach had taught her better than to squirm under scrutiny. 

“Quinn’s taste in men has improved since she arrived at Yale,” he says after a long moment and Santana jerks back as if he’d slapped her.

(She thinks she would have actually preferred him slapping her.)

She closes her eyes and sighs. There’s no point continuing her denial - Kurt clearly knows enough to understand what kind of reaction he’d get from using that as an opener. “How long have you known?”

“For sure? Only for the past few days. Coming home twice to find you drunk when you should have been at work kind of confirmed it, especially when you didn’t go to New Haven at the weekend,” he says and Santana nods. “But I’ve… suspected for a while.”

(Were it anyone else saying they had suspicions about Santana’s behaviour with another woman, she’s sure the part of her that still hasn’t recovered - that may never really recover - from being outed would have booted her into a full-blown panic.)

When Santana says nothing, Kurt smiles wryly. “Santana, you went from maybe one phone conversation a month to spending every weekend with Quinn. It wasn’t that big of a leap to assume there was _something_ going on between the two of you.”

“Okay, well when you put it like that, I _guess_ I can see why you’d make an assumption,” she says drily. 

“How long has it been going on?”

“Since you kicked me out,” Santana answers, and though she drops her gaze to her coffee cup so Kurt can’t see the flash of hurt, she can’t keep the cool edge out of her voice. “Well, the first time was at Schue’s non-wedding but I didn’t think it would be more than a one night thing… Nothing happened again until you kicked me out. I went to stay with her and after a few nights, it just sort of… happened again.”

Kurt nods thoughtfully and Santana takes a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee. She’s surprised at how easy she’s finding their conversation. They’re yet to approach anything too deep, only skating over the surface, but the prospect of getting into the mess she’s made of her feelings doesn’t make her feel nauseous like she expected. It just makes her regret not trying this sooner, not being honest with herself in a way that could have avoided everything going to hell last weekend. 

“So you two are…?”

“We’re nothing. Officially, I mean,” she sighs, running her finger along the rough edge of the coffee table. As much as she loves this coffee shop, she’s ruined one too many items of clothing on the edges of their ‘looks like we salvaged it but it actually cost hundreds of dollars’ shabby chic furniture. “I didn’t want us to be anything.”

Kurt winces and Santana can’t blame him - it sounds cruel even to her ears. 

“I just mean… after Britt, you know? I was scared to be the girl who falls for both of her best friends, then fucks things up with both of them.”

It’s the first time Santana has said Brittany’s name to anyone other than Quinn in months, and the irony of the situation sickens her.

“Big bad Santana Lopez, scared?” Kurt teases gently.

“Big bad Santana Lopez who’ll still shave your eyebrows off in your sleep if you try her,” she bites back, laughing at the way Kurt’s eyes widen slightly at the image before she forces herself back on track. “It was easy to fall into sleeping together. Stupidly easy, to be honest, it just kept happening. Those first few weekends, I kept waiting for it to stop, for Quinn to tell me it needed to end or that it was a mistake but… she never did. I kept thinking I’d get up there and she’d tell me to find a hotel or, like, jump on a train back to New York. Instead, she’d be there on the platform, taking my bag when I get off the train like some chivalrous fucking gentleman.”

Kurt laughs as Santana rolls her eyes but he says nothing. He’s settled back into his chair, coffee cup resting against his chin as he looks at Santana, and something in his gaze _unlocks_ her, the words she’s pushed away for weeks bursting forth.

“Obviously, I’m no idiot, I know most best friends don’t sleep together, ignoring what happened with Brittany. But it never felt like ‘oh, we’re best friends and now we’re crossing this boundary, we’re changing things’. It just made sense and we didn’t talk about it and I was fine, honestly _fine_ with that. It didn’t need to be a thing, it didn’t… I didn’t want to label it. It could just be this mutual attraction that we act on at night and then in the day we’re back to just being Quinn and Santana. Friends, and nobody’s invested in anything, and we’re not risking anything.” She sighs. “And yes, before you start, I know how fucking insane it sounds. But things have been so rough with Britt since we broke up, it’s like breaking up has tarnished all the memories even from before we were dating… it was like losing her twice over, y’know? I couldn’t deal with that happening again.”

“So what happened?” Kurt asks softly. 

“I, like the lesbian _queen_ that I am, caught feelings. And along with the feelings came a whole clusterfuck of other stuff. I was scared of hurting Quinn, not being good for her. She’s been through so much crap already, I didn’t want to add something else to the pile,” Santana says, eyes fixed on the table as she swallows once, twice past the lump in her throat. “And I felt guilty at the idea of moving on from Brittany, because she was it for so long… and it’s stupid, because obviously she’s with Sam, but I couldn’t stop thinking it. It all just seemed too much, I didn’t want to have feelings for anyone, let alone someone who already means a lot to me. It would… it would hurt a hell of a lot, losing someone else.”

Santana exhales shakily. “But then she’d look at me, all soft and gentle and it felt like… fuck, it felt like I could be enough, Kurt. Or she’d get all vulnerable with me, like she trusted me not to hurt her. And I’d get excited on the train up, not for sex or parties or whatever, just to see her. It was like this, this _warmth_ , just sitting here,” she says, rubbing her chest, “whenever I thought about her and it seemed to be to happening more and more and I just got scared cos it all felt like too much. So I just kept pretending it wasn’t there. I kept pretending there were no feelings, cos sometimes things are better with no feelings.” 

“Why do I feel like you’re about to tell me you did something monumentally stupid?” Kurt sighs.

“Watch it, Hummel,” Santana snaps on reflex, but there’s no bite to her voice. Finally airing everything she’s been avoiding thinking about for weeks has made her realise the extent of her emotional exhaustion, how much jumping through hoop after hoop after hoop to avoid acknowledging her feelings has fatigued her. 

“Am I wrong?” he replies, eyebrow quirked in a way that looks nothing like Quinn but still makes Santana think of her.

“I… may have freaked out when some gross rich boy assumed we were dating and then gotten in the face of some girl flirting with Quinn that same night because I was jealous.” Kurt gestures at her as if to say ‘there we are!’ while he sips his coffee, and Santana rolls her eyes at him. “Then before I got on the train home, she asked me what we are. Sort of called me out on the whole undefined nature of what we’re doing. You should have seen her, Kurt, it was so fucking brave,” Santana says, pride over Quinn’s courage smoothing out the shakiness in her voice.

“And?”

“And I panicked and said we were just having fun.”

Kurt says nothing for several long moments. He sets his coffee cup neatly back on its saucer, the clink as loud as a gunshot in the silence that’s fallen between them, before fixing Santana with an uncompromising stare.

“You are an idiot,” he finally says, shaking his head in exasperation, and though Santana agrees with him, she can’t stop the indignant ‘hey!’ that falls from her lips. “No, Santana, you got so in your head about the possibility of losing Quinn or hurting her that you didn’t acknowledge anything happening between the two of you and ending up putting yourself in a position where hurting her was the only likely outcome. You tend not to react well to being cornered and caught out.”

It’s a realisation Santana’s been toying with all week, but hearing Kurt say something similar makes her crumple in her seat.

“I wasn’t the only one who could have said something,” she says weakly, a last-ditch defence.

“That’s true,” Kurt concedes, “but I imagine Quinn was probably following your lead, to a certain extent. You’re the one who’s out, you’re the one with experience dating a woman. Quinn may be one of the bravest, toughest people I know, but you and I are well aware of how terrifying this can feel. Plus, you were in a serious relationship with the third member of your trifecta until fairly recently, another reason she may have been letting you take the reins.”

“And then got tired of waiting for me to do anything about it.” Santana pitches forward so her head rests in her hands. “Fuck. I messed this up so badly, all because I was trying to avoid it ending like it did with Britt.”

“Santana and Quinn are very different to Santana and Brittany,” Kurt says softly. “You can’t let the fact that your relationship with Brittany didn’t end how you expected it to to damage all your future relationships.

She knows Kurt is right, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow from someone who is still allowing his feelings to be messed around by his ex-boyfriend. 

“How do I fix this, Kurt?” she asks after a moment, drawing Kurt’s attention back from where it had been wandering around the coffee shop. He tilts his head to the side, mouth twisting as he considers Santana.

“I think you need to decide what you want to fix,” he says slowly. “Are you trying to get it back to the undefined, hidden feelings stage? Or do you want to try and actually build something with Quinn?”

“I… if I haven’t royally screwed up the possibility, I want to try for something real with her,” Santana says before taking a sip of coffee that’s cooled way too much to be enjoyable just to distract herself from willingly being so vulnerable.

“That train pass works in the week, right?” Santana nods. “Then go to New Haven tonight. Grovel like hell and fight for her. You two clearly need to have a chat that can’t be done on the phone.” 

He says it so simply that Santana wants to laugh until she realises it’s the only feasible route to a resolution of any kind with Quinn. She already has the week off work - her parents had been contemplating visiting New York to celebrate her father’s birthday, but they’ve been kept in Lima by work commitments - so there’s nothing keeping her in the city for the week.

She can do this. She is Santana fucking Lopez. She can _do_ this.

“Okay. Yeah, okay. I’m going to do it.”

The excited clap Kurt gives her almost makes her snort with laughter, it’s so reminiscent of high school, but after a week of misery and sadness and regret, something suspiciously close to hope is bubbling in Santana’s chest.

* * *

Santana is a little frazzled as she tries to pack for New Haven. It’s still only late afternoon, so she isn’t worried about missing the last train, but packing is proving a nightmare.

What does a girl pack for a ‘I’m sorry I hurt you and messed things up between us but I’ve realised that I really like you and if it’s not too late I want to try and make things work’ trip?

Santana doesn’t want to appear presumptuous or jinx anything by taking enough clothes for a week, but equally, if things go well, she doesn’t want to be stuck with just one pair of underwear. 

Still, the stress of putting things in her bag only to take them out again has her half-tempted to catch the train with nothing but her purse and the clothes on her back, consequences be damned. Kurt’s sporadic shouts of encouragement from the kitchen, where he’s sat checking his work emails, and teasing enquiries as to whether she’s ‘taking any of those expensive toys we got you to admit to owning last month’ do nothing to help, but they make her laugh and drown out the voices in her head trying to second guess her plan. 

Finally, finally, Santana settles on taking clothes for two nights. If she ends up staying longer… well, she can deal with the situation if she gets to it. Hope thud, thud, thuds in her chest as she zips up the bag - she’s trying not to get ahead of herself, not to assume this conversation with Quinn will be easy, but she’s leaning into the her new-found positivity.

(She tries not to think about what will happen if Quinn refuses to see her.)

Someone knocks on their front door but Santana pays it no attention, occupied with a last check for phone leads and her fake ID. She can hear Kurt chattering a mile a minute with whoever’s at the door - she assumes it’s one of the boys from his internship who always seem to manufacture reasons to drop around, boys Kurt still seems thrillingly oblivious to having charmed.

It’s not until she hears her name called that Santana tunes in, ducking through her curtain walls to see…

“Brittany?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm SURE you all have a lot of feelings. Feel free to shout at me in the comments.
> 
> Just a heads up, it'll be a little longer than usual before the next chapter (so you'll have to sit on this semi-cliffhanger...). I won't have much opportunity to write over the next few days, but once I'm able to I'll try and get something up asap. 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who is reading and following this story. It really, truly means a lot to me.


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to update. I'll explain after the chapter.

Brittany.

Here.

In New York.

Stood in their apartment, in the home Santana is building with her friends, and smiling excitedly in a way that’s so recognisable Santana’s chest aches as she’s catapulted back into her memories. 

“San, oh my god, I’m so happy to see you!”

Before Santana can stop her, Brittany sweeps her into a tight hug and spins her around. She should have braced herself for it - Brittany had always, always greeted her in the same way after they’d been apart for longer than a few days, had always taken advantage of their height difference to swing Santana around as if she were weightless, and she shouldn’t have expected that to change simply because everything else has - but Santana can’t think.

She can’t think, can’t make sense of anything, because Brittany should be in Lima but she’s here. She’s here, in Bushwick, and Santana doesn’t know _why_.

(Santana remembers imagining this very moment, Brittany spinning her around in a weird apartment on the outer fringes of New York, but in her fantasy it had always been _their_ apartment. It had been a home that _they_ would build together, a thrilling next step in a relationship with no interruptions and no heartbreak and no painful silences.)

(No Sam.)

(No Quinn.)

All Santana does know is that, moments ago, she was packing to visit someone who lights up the same hidden parts of her that Brittany once did. Who makes her feel just as weightless, just as giddy.

All she knows is that, moments ago, she was excited to finally, finally start fighting for Quinn in the way she’s always deserved. To finally, finally allow herself - force herself - to be brave.

All she knows is that, moments ago, she had begun to make peace with choosing Quinn over (the memory of) Brittany. 

But now Brittany is here, out of place among the curtain walls and salvaged furniture, more present than she’s been in Santana’s life in months. As Brittany sets her back on the ground, Santana feels nauseous in a way that has nothing to do with the spinning.

“Britt, what… what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you,” Brittany says easily, shrugging as if there were nothing more to it. As if there weren’t usually several state lines between them. As if Santana hadn’t spent her first few weeks in New York biting her knuckles to stifle her tears at night, hoping that Brittany might want to see her as much as she yearned, desperately yearned, to see Brittany again.

(As if she hasn’t spent the past week acting exactly the same way over someone entirely different.)

Even now, hearing those words from Brittany sends tingles along the back of Santana’s neck, makes her feel special in a way she’d once been certain nobody but Brittany could. 

(In a way she’d once been certain nobody but Brittany would try to make her feel.)

(Santana has never understood why Brittany thought she was worthy, why she thought Santana deserved to feel special.)

(Santana has never understood why Quinn doesn’t see that she is worthy, will forever rue her role in causing Quinn to believe that she doesn’t deserve to feel special.)

“In New York, B. What are you doing in New York?” Santana clarifies. 

“Oh, I’m… I’m actually graduating this year,” Brittany says, ducking her head as her voice softens. “Artie and Tina have been helping me, y’know, focus in class. They got me to talk to my teachers when I don’t get what they’re talking about, and Miss Pillsbury made me a study schedule and helped make everything make sense.”

It still doesn’t answer Santana’s question but, as she watches Brittany scuff her shoe against the floorboards, her heart swells with pride. She recognises the vulnerable edge to Brittany’s voice. She can remember the late night phone calls where Brittany asked her to explain their homework again because ‘I _still_ don’t get it, Santana’, can remember the quiet assurances that ‘honestly, San, I’m okay’ after another day when the world had made Brittany feel too stupid, too slow, too simple. 

Santana knows how much graduating - finally, officially, thanks to her own hard work rather than because of a ridiculous scheme orchestrated by Coach Sylvester - means to Brittany. 

If she wasn’t certain she’d shatter the moment her arms wrapped around Brittany, Santana would hug her. She settles for dipping her head to catch Brittany’s eye, smiling warmly.

“That’s fantastic, Britt,” Santana tells her sincerely. “I’m so happy for you.”

Brittany shrugs but when she lifts her head to meet Santana’s gaze, her own smile is firmly in place, embarrassment invisible but for the lingering cloud in her eyes.

(Brittany may have failed her senior year but Santana can’t stop thinking about how she failed _Brittany_. Failed to notice in time, failed to get Brittany the support she needed from their teachers, failed to push back when Brittany promised her that everything would work out.)

(Sometimes Santana thinks she’s too young to have amassed the number of regrets that weigh so heavily on her shoulders.)

“Yeah, it’s pretty great. Plus I got tired of being the most talented person in Glee Club, so it was time to move on,” Brittany deadpans. People at McKinley had often forgotten that, even though she chose to be more emotionally open than either Santana or Quinn, Brittany was just as adept at blowing past moments of vulnerability. “Now I’m just figuring out what to do next. Miss Pillsbury helped me apply for some colleges here in New York, to dance, and I’ve got a few auditions this week but, um, I’m not sure I want to go to college? So I’m also going to meet some studios, my teacher in Lima has some friends out here that she’s put me in touch with.”

Santana swallows once, twice, stuck on the idea of Brittany here. In New York. Permanently. The city is big - it’s big and busy and so full of life that Santana still sometimes feels intimidated despite herself - but it’s not so big that Santana would ever be able to forget it if Brittany was here too. 

Not that she wants to forget Brittany. She just wants to move on. Doesn’t she? Brittany’s surprise arrival has shattered whatever certainty Santana had landed on earlier in the afternoon, the timing too specific to feel like anything but a guiding hand from the universe. 

(Santana remembers countless stories from her grandmother about how she was certain God had a ‘great plan for all of his children’.)

(Santana still wonders how a loving god could possibly plan for her to be cast out by her family.)

Can it really be that simple? Can the past few months, her hesitation to commit to a possibility with Quinn, have been because the universe was lining up a reconciliation with Brittany?

Can Brittany have arrived just in time to stop Santana from making yet another mistake, yet another misstep? 

(Nothing has felt further from a mistake than the days and nights spent with Quinn, than the kisses pressed to Quinn’s skin in place of promises Santana hadn’t been brave enough to voice, than the sleepy smiles shared across a pillow. It had felt right, felt easy, felt natural in a way that scared, scared, scared Santana but it had never felt like a mistake.)

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Santana asks weakly, hating herself for how her voice cracks. 

“I tried, but you’ve been offline on, like, _everything_ this week, San. What’s that about, you _never_ stop checking Instagram usually,” Brittany teases and Santana bites her lip to stop her frown. Of course, _of_ _course_ , her attempt to block out the world would backfire on her like this. “So I figured I’d surprise you instead.”

Santana glances at Kurt over Brittany’s shoulder. He’s hovering by the kitchen, obviously trying to keep his face neutral but Santana can spot the concern in his eyes.

He must read the panic and confusion swirling in hers as he clears his throat to draw Brittany’s attention. 

“That’s really exciting, Brittany, and exploring options outside of college is always a great idea. It has, after all, worked out well for me,” Kurt says, playfully boastful as he twirls his hand in the air. “How long are you in New York?”

“Just a few days, my flight home is on Thursday. It actually worked out really well because school is closed this week,” Brittany replies, glancing between Kurt and Santana. “They said it was a gas leak or something, but I think it’s got something to do with Coach Sylvester. Artie says she’s had the Chemistry club working on something that’s going to ‘change cheerleading forever’, so she’s probably blown up Mr Schue’s classroom.”

Brittany looks over at Santana again, clearly expecting her to laugh, to reminisce about Coach Sylvester’s outlandish plans, but it’s taking all of Santana’s energy to stay upright, to stay in the conversation, to not break for her bedroom or the door or somewhere - anywhere - that’s not _here_.

“Is Sam here with you?” Santana hears Kurt ask. The breath catches in her throat, her muscles tensing as she waits for Brittany to answer.

Brittany is still looking at her but Santana can’t meet her gaze. 

“Sam and I broke up,” Brittany says quietly after a pause that seems to stretch far beyond the mere seconds it lasts. 

Santana feels like she’s been slapped, ears ringing with words she’d once been so desperate to hear. 

Words she’d been sure that she was no longer waiting for.

She can’t look at Brittany, can’t look at Kurt, can’t look anywhere but through her bedroom curtain walls at the duffle bag perched on the edge of her bed. It feels like hours have passed since she stood packing it, nursing a tender bubble of hope in her chest. 

She’d had a plan.

Santana had had a plan and Kurt had told her she was ready for it.

Ready for Quinn, ready to be brave, ready to stop letting the echoes of what might have been drown out the soft tune beckoning her forward.

Ready to stop being so damn scared.

Santana can’t remember why she believed him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm so sorry it's been such a long wait for this chapter.
> 
> I took a few days off work to go on a bit of a staycation away from everything (the initial break in posting I'd mentioned on my last chapter), fully intending to start writing this chapter as soon as I got back. When I got back though, I just found things a bit overwhelming - as we all have this past few months - and needed to take a step back from everything while trying to focus on areas I've neglected over the past few months, especially as some parts of my personal life have been more stressful. Before I realised, it had been well over a week since I'd returned home.
> 
> I found this chapter really difficult to write, Santana being confronted with her ex, with someone she loved. I ended a long-term relationship fairly recently and, though the situation is mostly pretty different to that of Brittany and Santana, I wasn't expecting how many emotions and feelings about my break-up this chapter would stir up. Writing it took a lot out of me. Though, again, the situations are different, as I'm planning to draw from elements of my life and relationships to inform parts of this story (particularly going forward), I think it's been a wake-up call that I need to give myself a bit of space to react to what I write.
> 
> I'm not entirely thrilled with this chapter - I think it's not quite hitting the voice I think I've had fairly consistently throughout - but I've reached a point where I just need to post it.
> 
> Apologies for both the lateness and the quality, I guess.
> 
> Any feedback would be hugely, hugely appreciated, though I've kept you all waiting long enough that I'm not sure I deserve your comments!
> 
> (Also, despite the abundance of Brittany in this chapter, it remains a Quinntana fic. Don't worry.)


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn gets a message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly shorter update this time around (trying to get myself to believe it's okay to post chapters less than 2000 words...!).

Quinn hates running late. 

From the moment they had first learnt to tell the time, Quinn’s parents had instilled in her and her sister an almost obsessive adherence to punctuality.

At every parent-teacher evening, her father would ask about Quinn’s timekeeping. He would always stay just quiet enough, just polite enough that, with his wife the picture of silent decorum at his side, it didn’t come across as the interrogation it so clearly was.

Quinn can still sometimes feel the ache of clenching her jaw tight, tighter, tighter as she fought to keep her head up. To not sink low in her chair as her father quizzed her teachers about whether she arrived on time to classes or whether she dawdled after lunch.

(“Really, sweetie, you shouldn’t linger in the cafeteria after lunch. We don’t want people to assume you’re hoping for seconds, do we? Not when you’re already quite a bit bigger than the other girls in your class.”)

(“Waiting in the lunchroom for seconds, as if we don’t provide for you abundantly. Must you embarrass your mother like that, Lucy? Must you embarrass me?”) 

Quinn remembers her father’s rage if she kept time with anything less than military precision, if he found out that she was late to a lesson or if she strayed a minute past her curfew.

She remembers her father accusing her of ‘throwing everything your mother and I have taught you about respect back in our faces’.

She remembers her mother silently clearing away the shattered remains of a whisky glass, refusing to look at either of them.

She remembers cutting her lunch break shorter and shorter, regardless of whether she had actually finished eating, so she could be waiting outside of her classroom the moment the bell rang. It only added to the burden of being Lucy Fabray but she had endured the extra comments, the added bullying, in the vain hope that she could make her father proud.

(Quinn burns with shame when she thinks about how long it took her to understand that Russell Fabray’s rules were never about preparing her for the future. They were never about teaching his children respect, they never came from a place of love. It was always simply about control, about obedience, about exerting his small amount of power over those who couldn’t - who didn’t know how to - push back.)

By high school, Quinn had discovered how to control her image. Whereas Lucy had been mercilessly teased for being the ‘nerd racing to class’, Quinn had fashioned her need to be at her classroom two minutes ahead of the bell as evidence of her singular focus and concentration. As another reason she was better than the masses at McKinley, another reason they should look up to her, should aspire to be like her.

It had served her well for four years under Coach Sylvester. Quinn had never once been late to practice, had never once had to endure punishment shuttle runs, and she knows it had smoothed her rise to the top.

In a twisted way, Quinn even had her father and his insistence on timekeeping to thank for befriending Santana. She knows helping Santana avoid the vindictive punishments meted out by the senior cheerleaders for sleeping through morning inspection had been the only reason she had decided to look at Quinn as anything other than a rival. 

(Quinn’s stomach clenches at the memory of Santana smirking up at her with glistening lips, head cushioned on her still shaking thigh, when she mused on her father’s role in their meeting.)

(She decides the knife-twist of pain is another reason to hate her father.)

She had been running late for Rachel’s first attempt at marrying Finn when she stupidly - stupidly - took her eyes from the road to reply to the bride-to-be’s messages. Distracted as much by her panic over not being on time as by her phone, she hadn’t noticed the stop sign.

The blaring horn.

The truck speeding towards her. 

Quinn remembers the moment of stillness amid the destruction - car windows beginning to shatter, the crunch of metal tearing into metal, her body thrown weightlessly to the side before her seatbelt could jerk her back - when she had understood that something was wrong wrong wrong but hadn’t known what.

Staring at the phone in her lap, Quinn feels trapped in that moment. Her breaths are short in her chest as everything seems to crack around her, destruction wrought by the message open on her screen. 

_Brittany came to our apartment last night to surprise Santana. I thought you would like to know._

She shouldn’t even be looking at her phone, should be sat at the front of the lecture where distraction wouldn’t be a possibility, but she had been _late_. She had been late and her usual spots at the front of the lecture hall had been occupied and she’d been forced to take a seat out of her professor’s direct eye line. 

When her phone had vibrated against her thigh, Quinn had swiped the message open without thinking, knowing she could get away with glancing at it. 

(Quinn still hopes, hopes, hopes that each new message she receives might be from Santana.)

(She still resents Santana for the disappointment that lingers bitterly in the back of her throat each time.)

The sound of the lecture fades away, background noise as Quinn’s attention focuses in on the message from Rachel. She knows she should look up, should feign an engagement in the class in case her professor does look her way, but Quinn can’t pull her eyes from the words across her screen. 

Brittany - Santana’s first love, Santana’s entire _world_ at one point, the person Quinn kept comparing herself to despite knowing she would always, always come up short - had travelled to New York to visit Santana.

Embarrassment flames in Quinn’s cheeks. She had spent countless sleepless hours contemplating how stupid, stupid, stupid it had been to think Santana would ever choose her over Brittany. Now it’s as if the universe had decided to show her just how misguided, just how _naive_ , she had been. 

With Brittany in New York, presumably hoping to rebuild what lay broken between them, why would Santana ever choose Quinn? 

(There seems to always be a second option, a better option than Quinn.)

Quinn’s fingers twitch, aching to reply to the message that has torn through her morning, but she suppresses the urge. 

How does she even respond to a message like that?

How does she begin to-

Wait.

Why does Rachel think she’d care about Brittany visiting Santana?

Panic shoots up Quinn’s spine like a live-wire. She had been getting comfortable with slowly creeping out of the closet on campus, surrounded by strangers and the chance to define herself on her terms, but the thought of someone who already knows her discovering that she’s… that she and Santana were _involved_ in some way? 

Quinn isn’t ready for that.

(Isn’t sure she’ll ever be ready for that.) 

She needs to claw this back. Needs to once again take back control of her narrative.

_Why would I care, Berry?_

The muscles in Quinn’s back tense and contract and tighten with every minute that passes without a response. She knows she’ll rue the discomfort later, her back having never fully recovered from her accident, but Quinn can’t stop herself from instinctively bracing for Rachel’s response.

She jumps as the bell rings, her lecture having wrapped up without Quinn noticing, but her eyes immediately fall back to her phone as it buzzes.

_Quinn… we don’t have to talk about it, I can sense that you don’t wish to right now and you know I’m committed to respecting your boundaries. However, you don’t need to pretend with me._

_We can acknowledge that we both know why you’d care._

Quinn would laugh at the idea of Rachel respecting anyone’s boundaries if it didn’t feel like she was silently shattering into pieces. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry (once again) for the delay. I promise I'm trying to get back to the swifter updates, I'm hoping I'm getting to a place where I have the desire to write much more frequently - these characters and this story are very dear to me, so I want to do them justice. Equally, all the incredible comments you leave have me doubly committed to this fic.
> 
> (Heads up, I have already started the next chapter!)
> 
> This chapter's basically a bit of a dive into Quinn's psyche. Any and all comments about her characterisation or the story so far would be super welcome, I really enjoy hearing what you think.
> 
> In my head, Quinn associates the concept of shattering with some of the most traumatic experiences of her life so often turns to it as a way to describe how she's feeling in her worst moments.


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having Brittany in New York is... strange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really putting the slow in slow burn...

Brittany doesn’t stay at the apartment for much longer after her surprise appearance, claiming exhaustion after a day of travelling. Santana doesn’t know whether she’s telling the truth or just wants to escape the stilted conversation and the way Kurt keeps glancing between the two of them, not quite hiding his concern.

(When did she stop being able to read Brittany?)

(When did Brittany stop hiding how she really felt from Santana?)

Either way, Santana is glad for the reprieve and tries to push away the guilt she feels over her sheer _relief_ that Brittany had thought to book a hotel room. From the moment Brittany had twirled her around in her tight embrace, Santana had expected her to ask to stay at the apartment. 

She had expected Brittany to ask to stay and Santana knows that she is weak weak weak, knows she would have said yes even as her every instinct screamed for her to say no.

She knows Brittany would have insisted that they could share Santana’s bed, that ‘you don’t need to sleep on the sofa, San, don’t be silly, it’s not like we’ve never shared a bed before’. She knows she would never have asked Brittany to sleep on the sofa ahead of her auditions, all too familiar with the stiffness it left you with after collapsing on it countless times after closing shifts when the final few footsteps to her bedroom had seemed an insurmountable distance.

Santana knows that she would have said yes and that she wouldn’t have slept at all. She would have held herself rigid, her limbs drawn in tight tight tight, to avoid losing herself in the brush of her skin against Brittany’s.

She knows she would have kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling to avoid looking at the blonde woman beside her.

To avoid looking at Brittany and seeing Quinn.

To avoid looking at Brittany and forgetting Quinn. 

(What does it say about her that even knowing it would be wrong, even knowing it would hurt, even knowing it would undo every faltering step of progress she has made, part of Santana still yearns to have Brittany spend the night alongside her?)

Kurt says nothing as Santana stiffly walks Brittany to the door, as she tells Brittany to let her know when her auditions finish the following day. He says nothing, only watches, as Santana sighs heavily and presses her forehead to the door - a breath in, a breath out - before returning to her bedroom and slowly unpacking her duffle bag.

He says nothing about the hot water bill when Santana disappears into the shower for an hour, reappearing with a face scrubbed clean and dull eyes stripped of the excitement that had glimmered there. He hesitates, convinced Santana shouldn’t be alone but unsure whether she wants company, as she drops onto the sofa and begins scrolling through Netflix. Only when she glances at him and then at the empty space beside her does Kurt join her. 

Hours into their impromptu TV marathon, Santana lets him hug her and Kurt lets her pretend there aren’t tears clinging to her eyelashes.

* * *

Santana wakes the next morning with her hand reaching across to the empty side of her bed, searching for a body that isn’t there. 

(Her palm stings with the phantom sensation of the small of Quinn’s back beneath her touch, of soft soft skin and muscles that relaxed instantly under the gentle pressure of her fingertips.)

(She has countless memories of nights with Brittany but she can’t remember the last time she had touched her softly, intimately. Santana hadn’t known to treasure it, to cherish it as the last time, and sorrow burns in her chest.)

It’s too much, too much, too much to think about so early in the day. She hadn’t slept well, her eyes tracking over the ceiling as her mind had whirred Quinn Brittany Quinn Brittany Quinn Brittany until she’d fallen into something too restless and draining to be sleep. Santana forces herself out of bed before her thoughts can settle too heavily on her chest and press her down into the mattress.

The scalding water of the shower leaves red blooming across her skin but does little to wash away the unease that has clung to her since Brittany appeared, since Santana had basically agreed to spend the next few days as her personal guide to the city. She keeps expecting something like excitement to burst through - it’s _Brittany_ , here in New York - but the unease resolutely lingers.

Unease and a guilt that settles heavily in her stomach, a guilt that only appears when Santana hurts someone she cares about. 

(She doesn’t want to know who prompts it.)

She’s tempted to indulge herself, to treat herself to a slow morning - Brittany had said her auditions likely wouldn’t wrap up until the early afternoon and she feels a listlessness that has little to do with poor sleep sap the energy from her muscles - but Santana knows that she needs a distraction. A slow morning will only leave her _stuck_ , stuck in the confused thoughts and tangled desires that have taken up residence in her mind, displacing her certainty. Her confidence.

The long list of errands stuck to the fridge is as good a distraction as any, Santana decides as she takes stock of the various scribbled post-it notes stuck across the surface. Usually, they would split the responsibility among the three of them, trusting each other to claim whichever tasks they could complete most conveniently. 

(“Yes, Berry, we _know_ your life is busy but Broadway stars still have to do shit around their apartments.”)

(“So you _do_ think I’m going to be a star!”)

(“… call the phone company or I will wash your new dress with Hummel’s hideous red jeans.”)

There’s enough to keep Santana occupied, to keep her from sinking (drowning) in her thoughts, until she has to meet Brittany. It might even go some small way to thanking Kurt for everything he’s done for her recently, to repaying the debt he would refuse to acknowledge exists.

Rachel can just owe her one.

* * *

_Just finished my last audition!! Feeling really good, they all went SO WELL. Going back to the hotel now, can’t wait to see you!!_

The message arrives along with the name of Brittany’s hotel as Santana staggers back through the door into the apartment, wrists aching from the weight of too many overstuffed bags. She should appreciate the timing, she knows she should - were she forced to linger in the apartment and watch the clock, Santana would only work herself up and up and up because she doesn’t know what to say to Brittany, doesn’t know why she’s felt guilty since Brittany had hugged her, doesn’t know why it feels like she’s getting everything _wrong_. 

Still, Santana wishes she had a moment, just a moment, to prepare herself. To parse through her thoughts and decide the image she wants - _needs_ \- to present to Brittany.

(Brittany had always been able to see through whatever facade Santana chose to display to the world. Unlike Quinn, she had sometimes been gracious enough to pretend that she couldn’t.)

The hour it takes to travel to Brittany’s hotel in Midtown isn’t nearly long enough to ready herself, not when Santana’s stomach lurches at every stop and only her white-knuckled grip on the pole beside her stops her from bolting whenever the doors slide open.

Santana can’t decide if it’s bravery or cowardice keeping her in her seat.

They greet each other awkwardly in the hotel lobby, more like distant friends-of-friends than two people with years of shared history. Brittany reaches to pull her into a hug but Santana can’t bear to accept it, can feel herself splintering just at the thought. She isn’t at all subtle as she shuffles backwards out of Brittany’s reach, swallowing the cloying taste of guilt on her tongue as Brittany lets her arm drop between them.

Santana looks away across the lobby to avoid seeing the hurt in Brittany’s eyes. To avoid showing the spark of irritation that had blazed through her because Brittany thinks that she _can_ just hug Santana as if nothing between them has changed. Santana may have cleaved their hearts in two with the break-up, but Brittany had to have known that the speed with which she had moved on had shattered the remnants Santana was barely holding together. 

(If Brittany _didn’t_ know, didn’t realise… Santana doesn’t think she has strength enough to withstand that.)

(What if Brittany did know and just didn’t care?)

She feels transported back to those first weeks after their conversation in the choir room, struggling to deal with her heartbreak and her guilt. With the self-loathing that had consumed her because how could she have the audacity to feel sorry for herself when it had been her decision to break them apart?

She knows she ought to say something, ought to explain her reticence in the face of Brittany’s seeming enthusiasm to reconnect… but how can she? How can she explain that she feels caught between the possibility of something new, something real, that she’d only just given herself permission to truly want and the memories that have surged to the fore with Brittany’s arrival?

How can Santana explain that she’s spent months teaching herself to move on and that she’s terrified Brittany holding her will undo it all? Or worse, will expose it as a sham, as a grand self-delusion that she has unwittingly drawn Quinn into?

How does she find the words to explain how she _desperately_ wants Brittany in her life, hadn't realised how much until she was in front of her, but that she isn’t sure on what terms? And that she can’t move past the fear that her indecision will hurt Brittany, hurt Quinn?

(How does Santana explain how, and when, protecting Quinn’s feelings has become one of her greatest priorities, even while she’s sure she poses the greatest threat?)

She can’t. Not yet. Not here, in an anonymous hotel lobby. Not when Brittany has so newly reappeared in her life and is riding high on adrenaline after her auditions. 

Santana swallows once, twice, forcing down the mass of half confessions and broken excuses shredding her throat in place of something easy.

( _Coward_.)

“So, what do you want to see in New York?”

“Whatever you want to show me.”

* * *

It’s painfully awkward in a way Santana has never experienced with Brittany.

She decides to take Brittany on a tour of her favourite spots in Manhattan, the places she’s proud to have stumbled across herself. She’d come to see New York as ‘her city’ in a way that Lima - too small, too routine, too full of people concerned with presenting the right image to offer anything but unhappiness and judgement to a girl like Santana - never had been, never could be.

They walk five blocks in silence before Santana decides to be bold, to seize the opportunity. She wants to show off New York to someone who understands what life there means to Santana. She breathes deeply - in, in, in and _out_ \- and wrestles aside the tension in her chest to allow excitement to bubble up. 

She forces herself to stop looking at Brittany as a source of confusion, as someone with the power to tear through her emotions, and to see her as the friend who has always supported her. As the person who understands the possibilities New York offers Santana because for so long she’d been the only one to hear Santana’s whispered dreams, her quiet ambitions. 

The awkwardness doesn’t disappear. It’s still there - noticeable in the long pauses in conversations, in the distance they keep between them even on crowded New York streets - but Santana chooses to ignore it in favour of the excitement that trips off her tongue as she talks. She chooses to ignore how strange it feels for Brittany to be here as she treats her to stories of the more outrageous situations Santana has found herself in, usually dragging Kurt or a friend from the bar along for the ride.

The more stories she tells, the more she feels like the old Santana walking alongside the old Brittany.

(She has to shove her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket, clenching them into tight tight fists, to fight the flickering instinct to link her pinky finger with Brittany’s.)

Still, Santana doesn’t miss the slight frown creasing Brittany’s brow whenever she mentions a name or a place or a memory with which Brittany isn’t familiar. It’s a near permanent fixture when they meet Kurt and Rachel for an early dinner and the conversation shifts from filling Brittany in on the bare outlines of their new lives to swapping more detailed stories over a meal none of them can really afford.

“It feels like there’s so much I have to catch up on,” Brittany says softly, forlornly, as they walk back to her hotel. Her eyes fixed on Kurt and Rachel’s backs ahead of them, she misses the guilt which flashes over Santana’s face. 

( _Not now, not here, not tonight_.)

She doesn’t know how to respond. She says nothing until they’re clustered in front of Brittany’s hotel to say goodbye and Santana summons every last bit of shaky bravery to hug Brittany and pretend it doesn’t burn.

Brittany’s comment echoes again and again and again as they travel back to Flatbush, blocking out the conversation Kurt and Rachel have across her. She turns down Rachel’s hopeful offer of a nightcap, barely registering the look her roommates share when she shakes her head and retreats into her bedroom.

The comment whirs around her mind as Santana lays in bed, driving sleep once more beyond her reach, until it hits her.

The reason it feels so strange to have Brittany in New York is because Brittany doesn’t _fit_ in the life Santana has built here.

Santana can so clearly remember her first weeks in the city, how she had spent hour after hour absorbing every aspect of her new home in a desperate attempt to fill the hole left by Brittany. To smooth over the frayed edges left by Brittany’s absence with new friends and new experiences. 

To suppress the urge to message Brittany whenever something exciting happened, whenever something mundane happened, whenever her breath caught and she was momentarily overwhelmed by the pace of life in New York.

Without realising at the time, Santana had built a life with no room for Brittany. She knows Brittany can sense it too. 

It scares Santana. Brittany has never not fit in her life. Even when things have been strained between them in high school, there had never not been a place for Brittany in Santana’s world. 

It scares her and she doesn’t know how to fix it. She doesn’t necessarily know if it _should_ be up to her to fix it. Santana may have pulled away when she moved to New York but so had Brittany, pulling further and further and further away until she fell into someone else’s arms.

(Even at her meanest, even at her pettiest, even on the days when everything had gone wrong and her insides burned with spite and the need to direct it somewhere, she had never resented Brittany for finding someone new.)

(Even on her best days, she had never been able to see a way to forgive Brittany for the speed with which she had moved on. For the ease with which she had appeared to cast off the significance of their relationship.) 

But now Brittany has ended things with Sam just as Santana has moved on.

She has moved on.

She has. 

Hasn’t she?

For all the certainty, all the solidity, Santana had felt in her new life, she fears Brittany’s reappearance will send the whole thing tumbling like a poorly-built tower of cards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No dialogue, we ride this introspection train like men...
> 
> (No, okay, all jokes aside, there will be more dialogue in the next chapter.)
> 
> Again, I'm really sorry for how long it's taken to update. I had actually basically finished this chapter for an update much closer to my old posting schedule before some stuff happened with my ex that led me to reevaluate it. The original draft skated too neatly, too quickly through Brittany and Santana's reunion and some stuff happening in my personal life felt relevant to draw upon here, which pretty much required an entire rewrite.
> 
> When have I ever passed up an opportunity to linger in feelings?
> 
> HOWEVER things will starting moving forward much more from the next chapter on. Conversations need to be had in New York and Santana needs to make some decisions, though I won't say much more on that... 
> 
> As always, I would love to hear what you think about this chapter or about the story in general. I know every fic writer says it, but I really am so grateful (and so pleasantly surprised!) whenever someone leaves a comment. This story is dear to me and I love hearing if/how you connect with it. Thank you for sticking with me on this journey.


End file.
